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American 
Primer 



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First Reader 

BiijWm.E,Mason 




In Oxxr* Sky, Thei^e Is Room 
For But One Fla§ 



Renominate and Elect 

WM. E. MASON 

Congressman-at-Large 



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Illinois State Legislature 

Elected Representative — 1878 

Elected Senator — 1882 

United States Congress 

Representative — 1886 

Representative — 1888 

Senator— 1897— 1903 
Congressman-at Larye 1916 

Conyressman-at-Lar^e 1918 



Congressman Mason is Well 
Known as 

Author of Pure Food Laws 
Father of Rural Free Delivery and Parcel 
Post. 

First to Report for Postal Savings Bank. 

Active and Practical friend of U. S. sol- 
diers and their families always. 

Voting for Suffrage in 1879. and ever 
since. 



The 
American Primer 

A Political Text-Book 
and Vo ters Guide 

Comprising Twelve Lessons 
in Practical Americanism 

and 

A First Reader 
for First Voters 

Giving Valuable Historic 
Facts and Modern Instances 

To Be Used in Connection with 
THE PRIMER 



By 

WILLIAM E. MASON, M. C. 

Present Congressman-at-Large and Former 
United States Senator from Illinois 



1920 Edition 



I5e 






Copyright 1920 by 

The Bronson Canotle Printing Co. 

Chicago. 



©CI.A597400 



SEP II i92r. 



FOREWORD 

I have written this little PRIMER AND FIRST READER 
in simple words, in the hope of assisting the new voters and the 
-busy citizens who have not time to read long arguments in large 
words. I assume entire responsibility for the contents, and no 
Committee is asked to share it with me. 

As the reelection of Lincoln, in 1864, was necessary to pre- 
serve the Union, so, today, the election of Harding is absolutely 
necessary to preserve sane American ideals, I have served in 
Congress during the last four years of Woodrow Wilson's term 
as President, and I know that no other President has ever so wil- 
fully and wantonly disobeyed his oath of office, by violating the 
CONSTITUTION and breaking the Statutory Law of his country. 

President Wilson declared war without the consent of Con- 
gress, by committing acts of war in Russia. From the grave of 
every American boy buried in Siberia and North Russia, comes 
the cry for impeachment ; while, from the Democratic candidate 
for President, come words of flattery and approval of policy. 

As an illustration in double-dealing, let me ask you to read 
this small deadly parallel, and, since one of the statements must 
be a falsehood, you say which it is: 

PLEASE NOTE THE DATES; BOTH BY WOODROW WILSON 

May 26, 1919. July 22, 1919. 

"We, therefore, are disposed to "The instructions to General 

help Kolchak with munitions, sup- Graves direct him not to interfere in 

plies and food, to establish them- Russian affairs. * * *." 
selves as The Government of All 
the Russias." 

General Pershing, on page fifty-five of his Report, tells which 
is true and which is false, saying that the troops were sent to fight 
"against the Bolshevist forces." 

ONE MORE ILLUSTRATION, BY WAY OF DEADLY PARALLEL; 

NOTE. THE DATES AND DECIDE WHICH STATEMENT IS TRUE 

From Wilson's Speech The following from a Secret 

Spokane, September 12, 1919. Agreement Signed on May 6, 1919, 

" * * * only in the Assembly" at Paris. 

does Great Britain have six votes. "The question having been raised 

And at San Francisco, September as to * * * " whether the Do- 

17, 1919. minions of the British Empire can 

•' * * * in the Council, there have representatives in the Council, 

is a perfect equality of votes. * * *" "we have no hesitation in expressing 

our entire concurrence in this view. 
* * * * " 

"(Signed") G. Clemenceau, 

Woodrow Wilson. 
D. Lloyd George." 



When he made the speeches in September, had he forgotten 
the statement signed in May? Is there any rule in diplomacy, 
which excuses a President for deceiving the people? 

Mr. Wilson again tried to deceive the people and excuse the 
Allies for stealing Shantung, by saying, at Saint Louis, that Shan- 
tung was promised to Japan in order to get her into the war. 
However, his attention was called to the fact that Japan had been 
in the war for nearly three years before this secret promise was 
made. He then admitted his misstatement, but continued to 
repeat it. 

This same Woodrow Wilson has further violated his oath 
to uphold our CONSTITUTION, by accepting "presents" from 
foreign governments, and he violated the Act of Congress of Janu- 
ary 31, 1881, by refusing' to turn those presents over to the Secre- 
tary of State, while awaiting the action of Congress. 

His Party favorites have stolen themselves rich, and go un- 
whipped of Justice. He finds us "at peace," to protect the sugar 
profiteers, and, at the same time, "at war," in order to imprison 
men who strike. Bellowing about his Democracy, he has been the 
greatest autocrat in the world, and, to climax his English career, 
he proposes to turn this Government over to a Court dominated 
by his mother's country. 

Often I am asked why this President has not been impeached. 
The answer is simple. 

While on his western tour, he was making misstatements 
about the League of Nations, and he was killing my constituents 
in Siberia without authority, and I prepared Articles of Impeach- 
ment. Then he came to Washington a mental and physical wreck. 

History impeaches him, and, in charity, let us hope that he 
may recover his mind and body and enjoy a long life under a sane, 
American, Republican President. But, as we value our country, 
let us also hope that the policies of Woodrow Wilson, now en- 
dorsed by James M. Cox, may take their leave of Washington, 
never to return. 

THE AUTHOR. 
Chicago, Illinois, September, 1920. 



PART I 

THE AMERICAN PRIMER 

LESSON I. 

U. S.: WHO, WHAT, WHY AND HOW. 

THE REPUBLIC. THE CONSTITUTION. THE FLAG. 

YOUNG AMERICA: What is your name? 

UNCLE SAM: They call me Uncle Sam. Who are you? 

We are Young America, first voters, and, if you are Uncle Sam, we'd 
like to ask you a few questions. 

Go ahead. Let us talk in small words about our great country, and we 
will try to understand what we talk about. 

Is our country a kingdom? 

No, it is not a kingdom. 

Is it a pure democracy f 

No, it is not a pure democracy. 

Well, Uncle Sam, what is it? 

It is a Republic. 

What is a pure democracy? 

It is a government where the majority rules in all things. 

Does not the majority rule in all things in our Republic? 

No, the majority cannot rule in all things in our Republic. 

I thought it was our boast that the majority rules in the United States of 
America. 

Those who so boast do not know about our CON-STI-TU-TION. 
Now, Young America, that is a long word. Read it over ; spell it ; and, when 
you understand it, you will know it is the greatest law which mankind ever 
devised, and it has done more for humanity than any other paper ever written 
by man. 

But surely the majority governs in most things in our country? 

Yes, in most things. 

Tell me one thing in which the majority does not govern. 

Well, the majority cannot compel the people to go to any particular 
church, or compel them to pay taxes to support any church. The majority 
cannot take your life or your liberty without giving you a trial bgfbre a jury. 
The majority cannot take your property without a hearing by ^ court and 
jury, and, when that majority does take your property it must be for public 
use, and you must be paid for it. 

Did we ever, in this country, compel men to go to a particular church? 
Yes, and they would be fined if they failed to attend the church fixed by 
law. In some places, that might be done now, if it were not for the CON- 
STITUTION. 

Say, Uncle Sam, that is a big word. We can see it has a big meaning, 
Tell us more about this CONSTITUTION. Can't Congress or the State 
Legislatures set it aside? 



No, they cannot set it aside. Congress and the State Legislatures and 
the City Councils try to set aside this great law, but cannot do it. 

Who decides whether a law shall stand, if it is passed by the United States 
Congress and is signed by the President, or if it is passed by a State Legisla- 
ture and is signed by the Governor of that State? 

The Supreme Court of the United States has set aside many laws passed 
by Congress and State Legislatures. For instance : the Law-making Powers 
frequently pass laws which deprive private citizens of their property without 
paying for it, and the Supreme Court has always set aside such laws. 

Is not that a great power to give to a court? 

Yes, it is a great power. Our forefathers who made the CONSTITUTION 
were wise men. They had been oppressed by a king, and they knew, from 
reading the history of the past, that the majority in a democracy would de- 
prive the minority of -some of its natural rights. That was so much the case 
that a pure democracy would not last. And so our wise fathers said : "We 
cannot have a king, but must govern ourselves. However, before we turn 
over all power to the majority, we will make an agreeynent that if the majority 
tries to oppress the minority, by taking away any natural human right, then it 
shall be the duty of the Supreme Court to set aside that law which oppresses the 
minority." 

What is a natural human right? 

The right to life, liberty and to be happy are natural human rights. 

But we take the lives of some for murder, and we put men in prison and 
won't let them be happy, don't we? 

Yes. The man who murders another has deprived that other of his life; 
the man in prison has deprived some one else of his life, liberty or right to be 
happy. But under our CONSTITUTION, before anyone can be so punished, 
he must be tried as the CONSTITUTION provides. 

Don't we in this country sometimes punish men without trial? 

Yes. The mob does that. The mob is made up of the worst kind of crim- 
inals. They are half-witted and half insane. They not only kill people, but 
they try to kill our great law, THE CONSTITUTION. Some of these half- 
wits get excited about religion, some about politics and some about war, and, 
in their excitement, would kill everyone who does not agree with them. Some- 
times the mob spirit gets into the law-makers, and, if it were not for our 
CONSTITUTION, they would oppress those who disagree with them. They 
have done so in scores of States, but our .Supreme Court has protected the 
people. 

Suppose the Supreme Court makes a mistake? 

Then we must obey its order and decision. That is the price we pay for 
being a Republic. As these Judges are appointed for life, they need not fear 
the majority when called upon to protect the minority. They are selected for 
their wisdom and good character, and they do their best to find out what is 
just. Honest and able judges disagree as to what is just, and to avoid the use 
guns and knives, we agree that the Supreme Court's decision shall be faithfully 
obeyed by every good man in the Republic. 

Do not some Americans claim the right to disobey the law or to change the 
law by force? 

No; those who do that are not Americans nor do they believe in our Re- 
public. They are called Anarchists, and they do not believe in any government. 

6 



They teach throwing of bombs, burning homes. We have some of them in our 
Republic now ; they march under a red flag. 

But I see many flags and banners that are not of our Republic? 

Yes; scores of patriotic, fraternal and social organisations have flags to 
identify their societies. They believe in and teach patriotism, and are a part 
of our country's flag. Every patriotic banner makes a part of our flag. Look 
at our map. See the land from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico; from the Atlantic 
Ocean on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. Now, remember, once and 
forever, that, in all the sky that covers our land, there is room for ONLY ONE 
FLAG. 

Well, Uncle Sam, we shall always love that flag. But is it not sometimes 
made use of by bad men? 

Yes, Young America. Some of those who shouted loudest for our flag during 
the late war, were the biggest thieves and used the American flag to hide what 
they had stolen. Much hypocrisy hides behind the screen of religion; many 
rogues we find wearing the cloak of reform; and much injustice and crime is 
committed under the guise of patriotism. 



LESSON II. 
TREATIES— UNCLE SAM'S TREATIES 

THE PRESIDENT'S PEACE TREATY AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. 

THE SENATE RESERVATIONS AND THE TREATY 

A CAMPAIGN ISSUE. 

YOUNG AMERICA. What is a TREATY? 

UNCLE SAM : A treaty is an agreement or contract between two or 
more countries. 

How many kinds of treaties are there? 

There are many kinds of treaties : some are about peace and war; some 
about boundary lines; some about fishing and killing seals; some about trading 
with other nations. 4 

Who can make a treaty for you, Uncle Sam? 

The President and two-thirds of the Senate. 

Can the President and the Senate make a treaty or agreement with other 
nations allowing those nations to say when we shall begin to kill? 

No, certainly not. 

Who has the power to say when we shall go to war? 

The CONGRESS : that is, the House of Representatives and the Senate, 
both elected by the people. 

Cannot the President tell us to fight? 

No, he can be told when to fight by the Congress. 

Can the President and the Senate tell us when to fight? 

No, it takes both the House and the Senate to tell us when to fight, and 
the President has nothing to say, if he obeys the CONSTITUTION which he 
is sworn to do. 

Well, what is a LEAGUE OF NATIONS? 



You know what a baseball league is? 

We surely do. The National League plays ball among its members, and 
the American League, among its members. Nations do not make leagues to 
play ball, do they? 

No, they sometimes make leagues, agreeing to play war on the same side. 

Have we a league or agreement to fight for any other nation? 

No, but we came within fourteen votes of making, such an agreement. 

When was that? 

After our war with Germany was over, the President went to Paris to try 
to make a TREATY OF PEACE. He had an idea that, in making peace with 
Germany he could also make a "league" with other nations, of which league 
he would be the head. Then he could have his way in the world. He wanted, 
and still wants, to keep me at war until he can have his way and be the first man 
to call together the League of Nations. 

Did the President go all alone? Did he take nobody with him? 

Yes and no. He took thirteen hundred bodies with him, and the minds in those 
bodies also "went along" with his mind, except two or three minds that could 
not "go along" with his and brought their bodies back, and two or three others 
that let their bodies stay with the President, until he found out that their minds 
did not "go along" with his, and sent them home. 

Did he consult no one? 

Oh yes, he consulted great men from other countries. 

Why did he not take some American Senators, as they have to consent to 

the treaty? 

Because he thought Republican Senators' minds could not change every time 
his did, and he thought Democratic Senators could not furnish any intelligent 
help. He knows them all very well, and some people think he is a very good 
judge of men, while others think not. 

Is that the way other Presidents have negotiated treaties? 

No, this President is the first one who ever appointed himself and refused 
to trust anyone but himself. 

Did the Senate ratify, or accept the treaty which included the League of 

Nations? 

No. 

PleSse tell me why. _ 

Well, you see President Wilson had never worked in cases like this, and 
he had to trade with smart men who have been trained to get the best bargain. 
One of the men with whom he traded was an Englishman, and Mr. Wilson, 
himself an Englishman and having written his belief that the English Consti- 
tution is better than our own, upon suddenly meeting kings and queens who 
flattered him and gave him and his wife beautiful and costly presents, accepted 
by him in violation of his oath, had his head turned, and struck out all the 
American things for which he had stood when he drew his original draft of a 
league of nations. 

Did he have a draft of a league of nations when he went to Paris? 

Yes. If you will read the evidence before the Senate Committee, of Mr. 
Bullitt who went to Paris with Mr. Wilson's party, you will see how the President 
had provided for equal representation for us and for self-determination and 
for all of his fourteen points, and then how he gradually abandoned every 
point. 

8 



Did the President approve the League of Nations? 

Not after the Senate had put into it certain Reservations. He controlled 
enough votes in the Senate to defeat the whole Treaty. 

What are these Reservations? 

They are statements written into the Treaty by the Senate, which say, "We 
approve the Treaty with this understanding." Fourteen Reservations were 
adopted, and here is a TABLE showing that they were all passed by a large 
majority of the Senators. 

TABT.I. SHOWIXG VOTK ON RESERVATIONS 

^'o- of Demo- Demo- Repub- Repub- Major- 

reser- crats crats licans licans ity for 

vation. for. against. for. against, reser- 

vation. 

1 Right of United States to decide 

when to withdraw 10 20 35 .. 25 

2 No war for United States with- 

out act of Congress 14 26 42 .. 30 

3 No mandate without consent of 

Congress 29 4 39 .. 64 

4 Right of United States to settle 

domestic questions 14 25 42 .. 31 

5 Retaining the Monroe doctrine. 17 22 41 .. 36 

6 "Withholds assent of United 

States to Japan's claim to 

Shantung 9 21 39 .. 27 

7 Appointments by President on 

League Council, Assembl3 , 
etc., to be ratified by United 
States Senate 17 14 38 .. 41 

8 United States commerce with 

Germany not to be submitted 

to league G 22 35 .. 19 

9 Requires appropriation by Con- 

gress for expenditures 8 25 38 . . 21 

10 In war. United States reserves 

right to increase armaments. 9 26 40 . . 23 

11 Right of United States to per- 

mit commercial relations Avlth 
covenant-breaking State 5 28 39 .. 16 

12 Rights of Americans in certain 'v 

property 8 2> 37 18 

13 Reserves right of Congress to 

accept labor provisions 6 27 3S . . 17 

14 Demands equal representation 

of United States with other 

nations on League IC 27 41 .. 37 

Total IGS 314 543 .. 395 

Did any Republican Senator vote against these fourteen Reservations? 

No. 

Did any Democratic Senator vote for them? 

Yes, some Democrats voted for every one of them. As many as twenty- 
nine Democrats voted for one of the Reservations. 

It is hard to understand. We all want peace, now and in the future. How 
could the President defeat the Peace Treaty? 

He said to the Senate : "I will not make a peace for the present war with 
Germany unless you allow me to make a covenant or agreement which, I think 
will keep us out of war with the whole world forever." The Senate answered : 
"Very well, Mr. President, but, if you make a treaty and a league at the same 
time, you must see to it that the United States has an even show with every other 
nation, in the Court of Arbitration." The President then said: "It takes two- 
thirds of your body to ratify the Treaty and, if you put in your Reservations, I, 
controlling more than one-third, will defeat the Treaty. The Senate did amend 
the Treaty, by the Reservations, and the President then ordered his Senators to 
vote against it. A majority of fourteen voted for the Traety with the League 

9 



Covenant and the Reservations in it, but it was defeated by President Wilson who 
that he wishes to make it a CAMPAIGN ISSUE. 

Did the Senate Reservations or amendments destroy the Treaty? 

No, they only protected America, our country. 



LESSON III. 
THE RESERVATIONS EXPLAINED 

I, RIGHT TO WITHDRAW. II, FOREIGN WARS. Ill, "MANDATES". 

YOUNG AMERICA : Will you please explain these Reservations in 
simple language, Uncle Sam, so that new voters can understand them? 

UNCLE SAM : I will try to make them plain to you. The first Reser- 
vation (see Senate Document 193, signed by Lodge, Republican Leader, and 
Hitchcock, Democratic Leader) says, that, unless three out of the four other 
principal countries with which we fought accept this Treaty with these Reser- 
vations, we will not be bound by it. No one but a child would be willing to be 
bound by a contract by which the other party is not also bound. 

We are first voters, but we can understand why a Senator would want to 
know that the other nations agree to the contract. What is the next point? 

Reservation I says that the United States shall decide when to go out of 
this League. The United States has always kept her agreements. Sometimes 
we have been cheated by other countries. If you catch a man cheating, you 
ought to have the right to quit trading with him, but, in this case, Mr. Wilson 
says, "No, you must trade on until the men cheating you are willing to excuse 
you." 

What is the next amendment? 

It promises that our country shall not be put into war, by any other coun- 
try. When our fathers made this CONSTITUTION that we have talked about, 
they did not intend that any one man should be able to get us into war. That 
was why they provided that the Congress ALONE should have the power to 
declare zvar. The President and all officers of the Government take an oath 
to support that great CONSTITUTION. W'hen Mr. Wilson and the foreigners 
who met with him in Paris put Article X into the League Covenant, saying that 
the Court established by the League and called the Assembly and the Council 
could "advise" us how we were to protect the other nations, any boy could see 
that, in order to protect them from even "threats" or "danger", -we might be 
"advised" to send our boys to be killed in England, Japan or any other place 
in the world. That would be war, and so the Senate said : "You must under- 
stand that we cannot go to war by your orders, and can give up our lives and our 
money only when Congress says so." 

Did President Wilson object to that? 

Yes, he was very strong in his objection. 

Why? Did not the Reservation state the truth? 

Yes. 

Then why did he object? 

He said it was not necessary. He uses a big word ; we'll have to spell it. 
He says, in his open letter of March 8, 1920, that, telling the world and the 
nations with which we are trading the truth about our CONSTITUTION, is 

10 



su-per-er-0-ga-iion. (Congressional Record, page 2835.) And that word means 
according to The Standard Dictionary, "The performance of a meritorious act, 
in excess of the demands of duty, hence superfluous." 

Well, was it necessary? 

I think so, because we have had trouble in the past, finding out exactly 
what our treaties meant, by not explaining fully in the treaty. 

Why was that, and when has it happened? 

Well, you find in United States history that, since the organization of this 
Government, there has been conflict of opinion among the best writers as to 
whether Congress is bound by a treaty to make all appropriations and pass 
all laws necessary to carry out a treaty. 

Washington said that it was perfectly clear to his understanding that the 
assent of the House of Representatives was not necessary for the validity of a 
treaty. That is, of course, true; but there has been a contention constantly by 
American writers that Congress was acting within its legal and moral scope if it 
refused to pass the laws required by a treaty if, in the opinion of Congress, the 
treaty-making power had exceeded its constitutional rights or if, in the opinion 
of Congress, such so-called necessary laws were against the interest of the 
people of the United States. 

Congress has always in the past made the necessary laws, and made the 
necessary appropriations to carry out all of its treaties; but there has always 
been a serious contention — one side saying that there is a treaty agreement and 
that Congress is bound to pass these laws. Under the strict rule of international 
law, Congress has complied. 

This Government passed the necessary laws, in 1796, to carry out the Treaty 
with Great Britain of 1794; in 1816, we passed the necessary laws to carry out 
a Commercial Treaty or Convention with Great Britain. We did the same, in 
1842 and 1843, with respect to a treaty of Washington; and, after the Mexican 
War, we provided the necessary laws to carry out the Treaty of Peace with 
Mexico. In every case, the claim has been made that, under international law, 
we are bound to do this, and, when an American objected by saying that Con- 
gress alone has the power to appropriate money, the answer given by Great 
Britain and Mexico was : "True your CONSTITUTION requires that Con- 
gress shall make appropriations, but the same CONSTITUTION authorizes 
the President and the Senate to make treaties and conventions," and that has 
been a complete answer for the foreign State; men will say that they made 
treaties in good faith without the knowledge as to the constitutional limitations 
of the President and the Senate.. Now, for the first time in the history of the 
United States, our Allies ask us to ratify a Treaty of Peace which will authorize 
a foreign court to order us into war; and, if we approve, the same old argument 
will be used. Thus, if Great Britain or Japan go into war, and the supreme 
council advises us how many men, how much money and how many ships they 
want, they will say at once, "Congress you are morally bound and under inter- 
national law you are legally bound to furnish your troops, furnish your 
men and ships, to defend Great Britain or Japan"; and we will have no legal 
or moral answer to their claim unless we give specific notice to our Allies that, 
under our CONSTITUTION, Congress alone can declare war, and that, if any 
power on earth calls us to war, the American people reserve the right, through 
their representatives, to decide whether they shall go to war, and, if so, on 
which side. 

11 



The same suggestion applies to the reservation which notifies the high con- 
tracting parties that the Congress of the United States reserves to itself the 
right to pass upon appropriations; but it is not of such moral or vital interest 
for the people to control appropriations as it is for them to retain control of the 
lives and the honor of their citizens. 

That's a long answer, but it is the most dangerous idea ever advanced, to 
say that we will kill and be killed by order of foreigners. 

To illustrate: suppose Japan should war with China, and Great Britain and 
Italy should say with Japan, "Uncle Sam, we 'advise' you to send your boys 
and your ships to fight for Japan." The same question would arise. Real Amer- 
icans would say, "This is war, and we can't go to war until our Congress declares 
war." Then Congress would be beseiged by those who favored our going to war 
to help England and Italy keep their treaty with Japan, saying : "Your Presi- 
dent and the Senate agreed to it. You are bound legally and morally to keep 
the contracts called treaties. You did it in 1796, in 1842 and 1843, and also 
after the Mexican War." But with this Reservation in the Treaty, we would 
say: "Yes, we did then, because there was nothing to notify you that all 
appropriations must be made by Congress ; however, in this Treaty that Presi- 
dent Wilson and the Senate made, we gave you notice that we could not and 
would not kill and be killed until Congress, knowing all the facts, declared war ; 
and so, Mr. Foreigner, the argument you used in the past fails because of the 
wisdom of the Republican Senators in the Reservation to Article X. 

Say, Uncle Sam, we ought to thank God we had a Republican Senate. What 
is the next most important Reservation? 

It is along the same line. Reservation III provides that we take no "man- 
date" over another nation, which again would mean taking blood and money 
from the United States, unless it is ordered by Congress. Only four Senators 
voted against that amendment. They were all Democrats. Twenty-nine Dem- 
ocrats and thirty-nine Republicans voted for it. President Wilson just lately 
asked for a "mandate" without telling how many American lives it would cost 
or how much more money he would tax us, and a Republican Congress sat 
down hard on his request by refusing it. 

That's fine. We vote in November for the first time, and we are willing 
to fight whenever our country says it is right, but we do not want to kill or be 
killed by order of anyone but you. Uncle Sam. 



LESSON IV. 
THE EXPLANATIONS CONTINUED 

RESERVATION IV, DOMESTIC QUESTIONS. V, MONROE DOC- 
TRINE. VI, SHANTUNG. VII, RATIFICATION OF APPOINT- 
MENTS. VIII, COMMERCE. 'IX, EXPENDITURES. X, INCREAS- 
ING ARMAMENTS. XI, XII, XIII; PROTECTION OF COMMER- 
CIAL RELATIONS, PROPERTY RIGHTS, AND LABOR. XIV, 
EQUAL REPRESENTATION. 
YOUNG AMERICA : In considering Reservation IV, we cannot see that 

anyone else but you, Uncle Sam, could settle our domestic questions. What 

American wants to submit them to other nations? 

12 



UNCLE SAM : Under the League Covenant, there would be great danger, 
for the matter would be taken entirely out of our hands, if the other nations 
wished, and, once having signed, we would be powerless to protest. That is 
why we must state clearly the idea of Reservation IV. You would not want 
to see my home questions decided by a foreign, and perhaps unfriendly, country, 
would you? Would you submit our tariff laws, for instance, to our business 
rivals or our immigration laws to any other country? 

No, of course not. Uncle Sam; and now we remember reading that Colonel 
Roosevelt, in commenting on the League of Nations, warned against letting 
any international court decide what matters of this nature should be submitted 
to it, saying that the nation itself must decide what matters relating to its domes- 
tic affairs could rightly come within the jurisdiction of such a court. 

Well, my children, next comes Reservation V which relates to, and pre- 
serves, the Monroe Doctrine. 

What is the Monroe Doctrine? 

It IS a rule of self-defense laid down by our wise and patriotic President, 
James Monroe, against allowing Kings, Kaisers, Mikados and other monarchs 
to surround us with their kind of government which would threaten and en- 
danger our life as a Republic. 

Didn't President Wilson have any lawyers with him to tell him of the dan- 
ger to the Monroe Doctrine? 

Oh yes, he had great lawyers, American lawyers, to advise him. They told 
him that Article X would "destroy the Monroe Doctrine." (Congressional 
Record, page 5835). These were lawyers of his own choosing, but he would 
not take their advice. And he now wants the American people to believe that 
he still stands by the Monroe Doctrine, although agreeing to its death. 
What is Reservation VI ? 

To make it brief, you should know that China is now a Republic; that, in 
March, 1898, the German Kaiser robbed China of valuable rights in her country. 
Now, after Japan went into the war with Germany, Great Britain and her Allies 
agreed that, if Japan would get China to help them in the war, they, the Allies 
would help Japan to steal for itself the Territory that Germany had stolen from 
Chma. This was kept secret from the United States, as it was from China. 
Little did we think, when we went to help Great Britain and Japan to fight 
for democracy that we were losing our sons to help the wickedest autocrat of 
the world to make slaves of thirty million republican Chinamen. It was the 
most cruel and cowardly agreement ever made; but Mr. Wilson said, "Never 
mind, we will ratify that agreement." And he consented to Articles 156, 157 
and 158 (see Treaty), which provide that the Territory of Shantung, prosperity 
and liberty stolen by Germany, should be turned over to Japan, notwithstanding 
the fact that China had joined Japan and us in the war with Germany. Reser- 
vation VI simply refuses to consent to this crime, and reserves liberty of action 
as to controversies between China and Japan. 

Well, Uncle Sam, as we understand it, Mr. Wilson agreed to the robbery 
of China, and, by Article X, agreed to furnish American lives to defend Japan 
in that crime. 

My children, that is right, and that would have been our agreement under 
the League of Nations Covenant, but for the patriotism of nine Democrats and 
thirty-nine Republicans in the Senate, who voted to amend the Treaty in regard 
to Shantung. 

13 



Reservation VII provides that when an American is appointed to the 
Council or Assembly, he shall be approved or disapproved by the Senators 
elected by the people, as is an army officer, a postmaster or a minister to a for- 
eign country. This takes away some of President Wilson's autocratic power, 
and, of course, he objects to it. 

What about Reservation VIII? 

Under our CONSTITUTION, Congress has control of our foreign com- 
merce This Reservation notifies the world that neither the Assembly, the Coun- 
cil nor the League can take the place of our CONSTITUTION in this respect. 
Reservation IX is the same proposition for American money as is Reservation 
II for American lives. It gives notice that appropriations must be made by Con- 
gress and that Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George cannot spend our money unless 
our Congressmen say so. 

Reading Reservation X, we see that it provides that we may increase our 
army and navy without consent of this Council. Why was that Reservation 

necessary? 

Well, my children, we have found, in our hundred and forty years of life, 
that sometimes nations which appear friendly to us really are not. They keep 
us from being prepared for defense. We want peace, but we will be prepared in 
the future to defend ourselves in any way we think best. Twenty-six Demo- 
crats voted against our right to prepare for defense, and forty Republicans 
voted for it. 

Uncle Sam, we agree with you, but a Democrat told us the other day that 
these agreements are just as binding on Japan and the other nations as they are 
on us. 

Yes, my children, that sounds well, but "Stop, Look and Listen." I, your 
Uncle Sam, have always kept my agreements. Many of the nations with which 
we are dealing break agreements with us and with each other. If you, with 
Rockefeller and Ford, signed a note for five million dollars, it would be just as 
binding on you as on those two gentlemen ; but, when the note came due, it would 
be more binding on them than on you, because you couldn't pay it and they could, 
and would. We agree to defend Japan in her territory; she makes the same 
agreement with us. Look up her record in Corea, in Shantung and now in Russia; 
her agreements with the United States; and then say whether an agreement 
with Japan is as binding on that country as it would be on us. 

Reservations XI and XII were necessary to protect us in our commercial 
relations and in the property rights of Americans. Reservation XIII protects 
us in protecting American labor from being governed by a foreign court. 

What is Reservation XIV? We see, by the table that it demands repre- 
sentation equal to other nations for you, Uncle Sam, in this high court of arbi- 
tration, which you call the Assembly and the Council of the League of Nations. 
Is it possible that President Wilson would consent that in this court you should 
not have equal representation? 

That is exactly what he tried to do, that is exactly what would have hap- 
pened, if this Treaty had been ratified without this Reservation XIV. When 
you play baseball, you want a fair, unprejudiced umpire. When you have a 
law suit, you want an equal chance in selecting the jury. What lawyer would 
be stupid enough to consent that his opponent in a case should have six judges 
to his one? Oh. Woodrow Wilson was just a kindergartener in a university of 
diplomacy over there. Later, he went around this country saying that Canada 

14 



could not have a member, and hence- a vote, in the League Council (see speech 
of Woodrow Wilson at Spokane, Washington, September 12, 1919) ; while, at 
the same time, he had previously signed an agreement with Lloyd George and 
Clemenceau, that Canada could have a member and a vote in the Council. (See 
Congressional Record, Speech of Senator Reed on the League.) 

My Young America, we must never use hard language. The President is 
sick, we are sorry for him and we pray for his speedy recovery; but we must 
say it was lucky for our country that Mr. Borden, Prime Minister for Canada, 
who was at the Peace Conference representing Canada, was forced, in the 
Canadian Parliament, to show this secret agreement made by Clemenceau, Lloyd 
George and Woodrow Wilson, to prove that his, Mr. Borden's, contention was 
right: namely, that Canada could have a member of the Council. 

Great Britain has several so-called "self-governing" colonies, besides Can- 
ada: Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and. India. What chance would I 
have before the representatives chosen by the Crown, if I had a disagreement 
with the Crown? The Senate and the American people read this secret note of 
Wilson's with astonishment, and the Senate simply provided, by Reservation 
XIV, that the United States shall not be bound by a decision "arising out of 
any dispute between the United States and any member of the League, if such 
member, or any self-governing dominion, colony, empire or part of empire united 
with it politically, has voted." 

Does that mean that President Wilson would be willing to let Australia, 
New Zealand or Canada vote in a case between the United States and Great 
Britain ? 

Yes. That is his position, though the leading statesmen of England say it 
is not fair and the Reservation is just. 

Is our President crazy? 

Some of my people think he is; some think he is all EngHsh; some say he is 
inefficient; some say he was so ambitious to preside over the first League of 
Nations that he gave up all his high ideals for human liberty to satisfy that 
ambition. 

Well, Uncle Sam, all other issues or questions seem small compared to the 
surrender of our government to a foreign Court or Council, and we will not vote 
for a Party that stands for such a thing. 

Right, Young America; all other questions are small compared to this. I 
want peace. This Wilson Treaty means war. It means giving the blood of my 
sons to settle quarrels between Kings, Kaisers and Mikados whose only interest 
is to increase their power. You call me Uncle Sam; I like my name. All Amer- 
icans, Democrats and Republicans alike, are my children. Fifty thousand of my 
children are dead and buried in France; more are blind and crippled; many, 
insane. My children are taxed more than ever before. My children in the 
Democratic Party are being misled; their leaders have tried to force me to 
surrender the taxing and the war-making power to some one above my people, 
and, in their Convention, tried to commit America to this abandonment of our 
CONSTITUTION. My people will not be deceived so soon again. Read Sen- 
ator Harding's speech on this question, and you will know why I want him 
for our next President. 



15 



LESSON V. 

PEACE OR WAR? 

THE WAR LAWS. WAYS OF ENDING WAR. 
WHY WAR CONDITIONS? THE PEACE RESOLUTION. 
TRYING TO REPEAL THE WAR LAWS. THE "POCKET VETO." 
YOUNG AMERICA: Uncle Sam, are we still at war? 
UNCLE SAM : No, we are at peace with the world. 
Then why does the President say that we are still at war? 
Because he wants the power the Congress gave to him while we were at 
war. 

We don't understand. 

Well, when Congress declared war, at the request of the President, the same 
Congress passed more than one hundred laws which gave him war power. Now 
he is used to that power, and he doesn't like to give it up until after the election 
in November. Those war-time laws provide that they shall no longer be laws 
after we get out of the war and have peace. 
How do we stop war and have peace? 

There are several ways of ending war. One way is to have the President 
and Senate make a peace treaty, and another way is to stop fighting. 
Did the President and the Senate make a peace treaty? 

No. The President, as I have shown you, tried to make a League of Nations, 
by putting it into the Peace Treaty, and then, because the Republican Senate 
put in some American Reservations, the President defeated the whole Peace 
Treaty by having his Democratic Senators vote against it. He wanted the war 
to continue so that he could talk about it in his political fight this fall, and so that 
he could keep all of his war powers. 

Why didn't the Republican Congress declare peace f 

That is exactly what the Republican Congress did do. Mr. Mason, a Repub- 
lican Congressman from Illinois, offered the first resolution, declaring that we 
were "at peace with all the world." This kind of a resolution would, according 
to our great Supreme Court, have fixed a day on and after which we would be 
at peace. That Court so decided in fixing the date of the end of our Civil War. 
Did that resolution pass the Congress? 

Yes, in substance. It passed the House as the Porter Resolution, and it 
passed the Senate as the Knox Resolution which was passed also by the House. 
That resolution would have been the law, but, under our CONSTITUTION, 
the President could veto that law. He did. Then it needed two-thirds of the 
Senators and the Members of the House to pass it over his veto. But the 
Republicans, all of whom wanted peace, did not have the two-thirds vote, and 
the, Democrats voted to help Mr. Wilson keep us in war. They think it will 
help elect their Democratic candidate for President. 
Will it help them? 

No, not if I know the American people who love peace. 
After the President had vetoed the Peace Resolution, did he not say that 
it was the duty of Congress to repeal the war laws? 

' Yes. He and the Democrats in Congress said that repeatedly, but everyone 
agreed that the Lever Act, under which the President could protect us from the 
profiteers, should not be repealed. 

Then why did not Congress repeal all those laws except the Lever Act? 

16 



That is exactly what the Republican Congress did. The Act Repealing the 
War Laws was passed by an almost unanimous vote in both the House and the 
Senate, but the President refused to sign it, thus setting aside the almost unan- 
imous wish of the chosen representatives of the people, by what is known as a 
"pocket veto." 

What is a "pocket veto," and how could the President veto a bill without 
returning it to Congress giving his objections? 

Under the CONSTITUTION, if the President does not sign a bill within 
ten days after it is sent to him, it becomes a law the same as if he had signed 
it; but the CONSTITUTION also provides that, if the Congress has adjourned 
during the ten days so that he cannot sign and return it to Congress, the bill 
fails to become a law. It is the custom for the President, on the last .day of the 
session, to sign the bills which he approves. President Wilson signed many 
bills, on the same day on which he refused to sign the Bill Repealing the War 
Laws. But all he had to do in order to defeat the will of the people in this case 
was to hold this Bill until the following day, and then say, "Congress has ad- 
journed, and I cannot either veto it or make it a law." If President Wilson 
had wanted to carry out the will of the people, he could have signed it when 
it was sent to him on the last day of the session, as he did the other bills. If he 
had vetoed the measure, the men in Congress, regardless of party, who had 
voted for it would have passed it over his veto, but, using an autocratic power, 
he simply put the bill into his pocket, and prevented its becoming a law. This 
was one of the most flagrant instances of usurpation of power possible, and the 
history of the United States shows no such wilfully autocratic conduct. By this 
act, the President thwarts the will of the American people to retain within his 
own hands the autocratic war power until the next meeting of Congress in 
December, 1920. 



LESSON VI. 

MORE ABOUT THE WAR POWERS 

A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE. ONE VERSUS ONE HUNDRED 
MILLION. USURPATIONS. THE PRESIDENT'S WAR IN RUS- 
SIA. TROOPS IN GERMANY. MORE ABUSES AND TWO 
REMEDIES. 

YOUNG AMERICA : Does the President still use the war powers which 
the Congress gave him? 

UNCLE SAM: Yes; whenever it suits his purpose, he says we are in war. 
When a lot of coal miners quit work, he said: "I have war power, and you 
must work or I will send you to jail." Many of them are now on trial for 
their liberty. But when the people wanted to protect themselves from the 
sugar profiteers, the President, through the same Attorney General, said he had 
no war power, and has permitted that sugar crowd to rob the American people 
and make it impossible for many of my people even to get sugar. You should 
read about the investigation and the report of the Committee in Congress, on this 
subject 

How can we be at war and have peace at the same time? •• 

No one can understand it. All writers on the law that governs nations say 
that war may end by stopping the fighting. Mr. Wilson is not a lawyer; he was, 

17 



for a short time, an attorney, and thinks he is a lawyer. He said to the Con- 
gress, in substance : "It is true you alone have the power to start war, but you 
have no power to stop it." He claimed, in his message, that one man, if he be 
the President, can keep us in war, even if all of our hundred million people want 
peace. 

Did you say Mr. Wilson is sick? 

Yes, he is very sick. 

Well, what war powers is he using? 

Many of them. He is locking up in jail men who quit work. He punishes 
men for speaking and newspapers for printing, what he doesn't like. He kept 
fifteen thousand soldiers in Russia, claiming that he had war power to do so; 
many of them are buried there, some of the dead have been brought home. He 
violated his oath to support the CONSTITUTION when he declared war on 
Russia, May 26, 1919. He said, on that day, that he would "support Admiral 
Kolchak with munitions, supplies and food to establish themselves as The Gov- 
ernment of All the Russias." 

Does the President admit that he signed that statement? 

Yes, he does now, but on the twenty-second of July, less than two months 
after he wrote it, he sent in a letter to the Senate, a statement entirely different. 
In that letter, he said : "The instructions to General Graves direct him not to inter- 
fere in Russian affairs. * * * =*=." 

Do you mean to say that Mr. Wilson — 

Don't use harsh words. Mr. Wilson is sick. 

Was he sick in May and July, 1919, when he made these two statements? 

His body was not sick then. He was suffering from impaired memory or 
from a moral disturbance of some kind. 

Is the President using any other war powers? 

Yes. He is keeping between seventeen and eighteen thousand American sol- 
diers in Germany, bringing a great burden and expense to the tax-payers of our 
country. 

Did he have a right to send them there? 

Yes, he had that right for the reason that, in November, 1918, an armistice 
was signed — 

What is an armistice? 

It is an agreement by which nations stop fighting. This armistice provided 
that the United States was to send troops to a part of Germany to stay while the 
Treaty of Peace was pending. 

Is the Treaty of Peace pending now? 

No ; it was, as I have shown you, offered by President Wilson and defeated 
in the Senate. 

Then why does he still keep our soldiers in Germany? 

Because he wilfully determined to keep us in a state of war. Our soldiers 
are doing police duty, such as guarding street-crossings in Coblenz, because 
of this wish of the President. 

Well, who pays our soldiers for doing police work in Coblenz? 

My American tax-payers, and it costs nearly two hundred thousand dollars 
each day. 

Are there any French or English soldiers in Germany? 

Yes, there are. 

Who pays them? 

18 



The German Government pays them. Under the agreement in June, 1919, 
Germany agreed to pay all of the soldiers of France, England and the United 
States, who went there under the terms of the armistice; but Germany is poor 
and is able to pay only France and England. Therefore, of course, my boys 
ought to come home, if for no other reason than that it costs me so much to 
keep them so far away from home. 

Uncle Sam, do you think your soldier boys ought to be used in other coun- 
tries for any other work than defending our flag? 

No. That is the reason I am going to have a new Commandcr-in-Chu-f ifter 
the fourth of next March. Mr. Wilson has used my soldier boys to work as 
laborers on the railroads in northern Russia and in Siberia; he has used the 
boj's in my uniform as menials, and now to guard street-crossings in foreign 
territory. That uniform is a badge of honor, and, whenever it is used in for- 
eign countries for anything but the work of an American soldier, it is degrading 
and humiliating to me. Five hundred of my boys are buried in the snows and 
ice of northern Russia and Siberia, and I want the next Congress to erect a 
monument to those brave boys, a monument out on the White House lot, 
so that this President, and all Presidents who come after him, may be reminded 
daily of their oath of office to obey the CONSTITUTION, and not to send my 
boys into the fights of other nations unless Congress has directed him to do 
so. 

When does Mr. Wilson's time as President end? 

On March fourth, 1921. 

That is a long time. Is there no other way to excuse him before then? 

Well, there is no other way except by impeachment. 

What is impeachment? 

It is a trial by the Senate which has to be begun by the House of Represen- 
tatives for the purpose of removing a President for violating our laws, and it 
takes two-thirds of the Senate to so remove him. 

Why have not proceedings been started to impeach Mr. Wilson? 

He is a sick man. 



LESSON VII. 
PARTY PLATFORMS. WHAT? COMPARISONS 

A DEMOCRAT? A PROFITEER? A "PATRIOTEER"? BROKEN 

PROMISES. 

YOUNG AA'IERICA: Uncle Sam, what is a party platform? 

UNCLE SAM : It is a written statement by a political party, telling the 
people just what the party claims to have done and what it promises to do. It 
also usually takes most of our time by telling what the other party has done 
and what it has not done. 

What is the use of a party platform? 

Some one has said that it is like a car platform ; that it is to get in on, 
but not to stand on. 

Do both parties treat it in that way? 

No. Neither party is perfect, and both sometimes promise more than 
they can perform. The Republican Party elected its first President in 1860. 
The platform was a promise to save our Union; its candidate was Mr. Lincoln. 

19 



He "stood on" his platform and saved the Union. The Democrats tried their 
best to live up to their platform plank called "States' Rights". A million men 
in arms tried to destroy our Government, and in all that army there wasn't 
a single Republican. In the next election, 1864, the Democratic platform said 
the war to save the Union was a failure. Lincoln kept standing on his platform, 
and saved the Union. Everybody is glad he did, and we shall be glad next 
year, 1921, because Senator Harding, Governor Coolidge and their Party will 
save our country from being controlled in war and other ways by foreigners. 
In reading your political history, you will find that, from Lincoln to Taft, 
every Republican has done his level best to ''stand on" his platform, and, for 
the first time in our history, Mr. Wilson has openly violated his platform, and 
advised a Democratic Congress to do the same. 

You don't mean to say President Wilson has violated his promise? 

Yes, in many instances. He and his Party said he would not run for a 
second term. He did run. They promised free tolls to American ships through 
the Panama Canal. He demanded of a Democratic Congress that they break 
their word, and they broke it, so that American ships have to pay. You see, 
we cannot count on the Democratic platform. You should read Mr. Bryan's 
statement. It shows part, but not all, of the "fun" there is in it. 

Is Mr. Bryan a Democrat? 

Sometimes I think he thinks he is. 

Since you gave us our first lesson, we have been looking up the word in 
the dictionary. It seems a Democrat is "one who believes in political equality." 
Do we have political equality in the United States? 

Yes, except in Democratic States. It takes ten times as many voters to 
elect a Congressman in Nebraska as it does in the sure Democratic States. 

Did Mr. Bryan try to correct that by putting a Democratic plank in the 
Democratic platform? 

No; that is why I say that sometimes I think Mr. Bryan thinks he is a 
Democrat. Anyway, he wanted to enforce the Dry Law, and his Party beat 
him. Mr. Corcoran, a real Democrat, wanted to amend the same Law, and the 
Party beat him. Mr. Bryan wanted to promise the people that his Party would 
prosecute the men who stole from the Government during the war, but, as all 
the stealing was made possible by appointmerits of the Democratic President, 
it was thought best not to disturb the profiteers until after election. 

What is a profiteer? 

A profiteer is a person who made dishonest profits out of our country 
while we were at war. 

There is another word we have heard and do not quite understand ; Uncle 
Sam, what is a "patrioteer"? 

He is a man who wears the American flag as a cloak to hide what he has 
stolen from the Government. Remember, my children, you should judge a party 
as you judge a man, by what it does and not by what it says. Every promise 
in this Democratic platform is false in view of Democratic performance, under 
President Wilson. His mouth was loud, and his ink flowed rivers of American- 
ism and fourteen points for Peace and Civilization. 

But what did he do? He abandoned every one of his fourteen points, 
and, from the day he refused one hundred thousand volunteers, in order to keep 
Colonel Roosevelt out of the army, down to the day he demanded the election 

20 



of Democrats only to Congress in war time, lie used the blood of my sons to 
help himself and his Party. 

Yet this year's platform says that, in his conduct of the war, there was 
"no semblance of political bias." 

Claiming economy in administration, the facts are, that the "cost plus" 
system of Mr. Wilson, objected to by Republicans, opened the door to thieves, 
and many there were who entered in answer to the invitation. Expressing admir- 
ation for our soldiers, a Democratic Congress gave our returning boys the petty 
sixty-dollar bonus, not enough to buy a civilian suit, and, in the present Congress, 
the administration and a majority of that Party have delayed the effort of Re- 
publicans to help make up a part of the loss to our boys. 

Boasting of bond selling under "Democratic leadership", the facts are, 
that every Congressman, Republican and Democrat alike, voted to supply the 
money, and millions of men, women and children, bankers, boot-blacks, lawyers, 
doctors, farmers, laborers, clerks, and newspapers, and the people of every 
class, gave time and money, while the profiteer friends of the administration 
lined their pockets by buying from themselves. 

Pledging a curb on profiteers, the Attorney General, instead of prosecuting 
them, has permitted them to proceed. Loyally they reprint their tariff plank 
of "Tariff for Revenue," which means no protection to labor. The Democratic 
way to make labor plenty here for the laboring man, is to buy what he makes in 
some other country. They favor a Budget, though their President vetoed the 
Budget Bill passed by a Republican Congress. 

Although the Democrats throw a great big "sop" to our farmers, the fact 
remains that the Southern farmer, without regulation, fixed his price on cotton 
and made an increase of three hundred per cent, while the northern farmer was 
limited to one hundred per cent, and the Democratic administration took over 
and sold Northern farmers' wheat at a profit of fifty million dollars. This 
is "Equality of Laws," according to the Democratic Party. 

"Labor is not a commodity; it is human," says their platform. Yet men 
are put in prison for quitting their work, and this more than a year after peace 
has come. 

^ This Party boasts of the highways, because the States and the localities 
which pay the most get the least benefit. It boasts of Free Rural Delivery of 
mail, which was established by a Republican Congress and a Republican Presi- 
dent, years ago. It boasts of an increased delivery to six million more patrons, 
"without materially added cost," which, in part, explains the miserably poor pay 
given to Post Office employes, and the poorest service to the American people 
ever known in the history of this country. It boasts of its help to the Merchant 
Marine, when we all know that the Democratic Party gave that service a death 
blow when it wickedly broke its promise and compelled American sailors to pay 
for sailing in American waters, between American ports, and when it proceeded 
to sell American ships to foreign syndicates at twenty-five per cent, of their 
value, to help our foreign friends successfully to compete with the American 
Merchant Marine. 

Boasting of Wilson's policy in Mexico, the fact remains that his offensive 
intermeddling did much to bring on Mexican trouble, by telling them who should 
be their President. The Americans killed there were killed by guns sent by 
Wilson to overthrow the established and recognized Government. The same 
happened in Siberia when he sent guns there and to Northern Russia to Kolchak 

21 



and Denikine. My children, if there is any controversy anywhere under God's 
sun where Woodrow Wilson has not tried to insert his nostril, I cannot now 
remember it. 

That same Democratic Party, having been put in power by Americans of 
Irish blood, now gives them the tear of "sympathy," but wishes it understood 
that it sympathizes only "within the limitation of international comity and usage." 
"International comity and usage," for eight years, has been to consult Great 
Britain about all Irish questions. The cheapest attempt to fool the people is to 
stand for Article X whereby we guarantee no change in the "Territorial Integ- 
rity" of Great Britain which now includes, by force and fraud, the island of 
Ireland, and, at the same time, to refer the new Republic of Ireland to King 
George and the Mikado for relief. My children, when you go on your vaca- 
tions, don't hire a fox to guard your hen-roost nor a lion to portect your lambs. 
A soaked biscuit to the Republic, the whole bakery to the King. They say to 
Ireland, "We sympathize with you." Then turning, they salute the King, and 
say, "This sympathy business doesn't go, if in any way it hurts your kingly heart 
or cracks the royal rule of 'international comity and usage.' " Was ever hypoc- 
risy covered by so transparent a dress? Was ever so cheap and rotten a bribe 
offered in exchange for American manhood? 



LESSON VIII. 
THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 

ONE BIG REASON. 

YOUNG AMERICA: Tell me. Uncle Sam, what makes the high cost of 
living? 

UNCLE SAM : Many things. High tax is one of the principal difficulties. 
Look at the picture of Great Britain's great ship for floating war or bombing 
airplanes. 

What has that to do with our taxes? 

Well, you see, under our English President, we are paying in taxes two 
hundred million dollars a year, which ought to be paid by Great Britain. 

How do we pay taxes for Great Britain? 

Well, you see, I borrowed from my children, the American people, ten 
billions in money to loan to the countries with which we were fighting. When 
the other countries do not pay their interest, I have to pay for it, and I am pay- 
ing for Great Britain more than five hundred thousand dollars a day. 
If I didn't have to pay English interest, we might have a much better navy 
in the air and the water for our defense. England spends 675 million dollars 
for bombing planes and has planned to float them in water or air, and with 
them she could bomb New York and Boston. 

Are we prepared to defend ourselves against these bombing planes? 

No; we can spend less than ten per cent, of that which Great Britain 
spends. Our dear English President and his Secretary of the Treasury 
say, in substance : "Go ahead, fix up your navy in air and water, and we will 
let the tax-payers in the United States pay your interest on the bonds." 

Doesn't Great Britain feel thankful for our kindness? 

Some of her people do, but a Member of her Congress, or Parliament, who 

22 



is also a leading English editor, said the other day that we Americans are a 
nation of "strutters," a disgrace to civilization, and that we kept out of the 
war until we saw which side would win and then joined the winner. 

Say, Uncle Sam, he's a 1 . 

Yes, yes, but don't use bad language. I want to be good friends and 
neighbors. Still I do think they ought not to abus*e us in their Congress and in 
their newspapers while we are adding to the cost of food and clothing for our 
working people, to pay their debts. 



LESSON IX. 



ACCUMULATING TAXES 

LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND. HOW TO HELP MATTERS. 

YOUNG AMERICA: We don't yet see how our paying English debts adds 
to our cost of living. 

UNCLE SAM : Every dollar I pay I must get from my people, and every 
one who pays a dollar to me must get it out of his business. Therefore, he 
must raise the price of what he produces so that he can live and have the extra 
money to give me. 

But we don't pay taxes, do we? 

Oh, yes. Everyone who eats pays a tax; everyone who wears or uses 
anything pays a tax. Begin with your shoes; the farmer must get more for 
the hide to pay his tax, the tanner must get more for tanning to pay his tax, 
the owner of the shoe factory must get more for making to pay his tax, the 
merchant must put more on the cost to pay his tax, and then when you buy those 
shoes, all of this is put onto the price and you have to pay a share of the tax of the 
stockman, the tanner, the shoemaker and the merchant. The same applies to your 
stockings and all your clothes, including your hat or cap. In your food, the 
same thing applies ; the farmer has to pay two or three times as much for help, 
for seed and for implements, and, when you eat a biscuit, you pay a part of 
the tax of the farmer, the miller and the baker. 

Then we really do pay taxes and didn't know it. 

Exactly so. If we could get rid of our taxes, then the high cost of living 
would be reduced by the law of supply and demand. 

What is the law of supply and demand? 

If we have more wheat than we need, it is cheaper; if we have more appe- 
tite for wheat than we have wheat, it is higher. If you had the only horse in 
Illinois, you could get almost any price for it; but if you had a million horses 
and everyone had all the horses he wanted, then you couldn't give a horse away. 
Now, you see, when you add a tax for me, you add to the cost of everything 
you use to sustain life. 

Oh, yes, Uncle Sam, we see now. We read in the paper how much Mr. 
Rockefeller had to pay for taxes, and now we can see that he puts it onto us 
for our lamp and our engine. How can we reduce these taxes? 

Vote for an American, like Senator Harding of Ohio, for President, and 
then insist that these nations that can spend so much for war, in future at least 
pay the interest that I am now paying for them. Insist that we stop spending 
money keeping American soldiers in Europe. Insist that we have an honest 

23 



American for Attorney General, who will make some of the big conspirators 
bring back money they stole from me while I was burdened by war. Increase 
the tariff duty on silks and satins, laces, diamonds and other imported luxuries. 

Wait a minute, Uncle Sam, what is a tariff? 

I will answer in the next Lesson. 



LESSON X. 



THE TARIFF QUESTION BRIEFLY STATED 
BY UNCLE SAM 

YOUNG AMERICA: Now, what is a tarifif? 

UNCLE SAM : It is the money I collect from people who bring things 
into my country to sell. 

I see the Democrats say they are for a "tarifif for revenue only." 

Yes, and it never does produce revenue, but only poverty for my people. 
The Republicans collect for me a tariff which produces revenue and, at the 
same time, protects my people from competition with cheap labor in Europe. 
The protective tariff is a great labor-saver to my children. 

In what way? 

Well, my children down south used to work to raise cotton, then carry it 
to the river and ship it to the ocean, then across the ocean ; then, when it was 
made into cloth, they would ship it back. This added labor of shipping added 
to the cost of the calico. Now, under a protective tariff, you can see some of 
my cotton factories from the cotton fields. It has done the same for needles 
and pins, cotton thread and steel rails. Look it up, Young America, and you 
will find that whenever we have had a Democratic "tarifif for revenue only," 
we have had pratically free trade and free soup. I have never needed protection 
as I shall need it for the next four years. Anyone who believes in "tarifif for 
revenue only," believes in hunger and idleness, and advocates the free soup of 
charity for those who labor; but the man who advocates the protection of 
William McKinley, believes in steady work, good pay and a "full dinner pail." 
Cox, the Democratic nominee for President, is for the poverty of the Wilson 
Bill; Harding, the Republican, is for peace, protection and plenty of the Mc- 
Kinley Bill. 



LESSON XL 

THE NOMINEES FOR PRESIDENT ON "A SEPARATE" 
PEACE. COX, DEMOCRAT; HARDING, REPUBLICAN. 

YOUNG AMERICA: Have you seen Governor Cox's letter of accept- 
ance of the nomination? 

UNCLE SAM : Yes, and he gives you clear, strong reasons why he should 
not be elected President. 

What is the principal reason he gives why he should be defeated? 

The principal reason is because he says that for us to make a separate peace 
with Germany would be dishonorable for me. Now, England has made peace 
with Germany and is trading with her, as has France. So have Japan and Italy. 

24 



They are all trading with her, and, of course, will be glad to have us follow 
the Wilson-Cox plan so as not to ■ interfere with their foreign trade. Cox 
says that, because Senator Lodge did not believe in a separate peace with 
Germany while England and her Allies were at war, therefore, we should not 
make peace with Germany after all the other nations have concluded their peace. 
Mr. Cox either lacks the brains to observe changed conditions or he deliberately 
inclines to mislead the people. Wilson says, "You cannot have peace with 
Germany, you cannot trade with Germany, until you agree to do what Great 
Britain and Japan want me to do with them in the future." And the little clock 
in Dayton says, "Cuck-oo." One of these gentlemen is sick and the other one 
silly. 

Harding, the other candidate from Ohio, says, "I promise you formal and 
effective peace as quickly as a Republican Congress can pass its declaration for a 
Republican Executive to sign." Remember, my young voters, that, while Harding 
will sign a declaration of peace that Wilson vetoed, Mr. Wilson and his under- 
study insist on keeping us in a state of war until the other nations of the world 
dictate to me my terms of peace with Germany. 

Mr. Cox says, "We fought the war together, and now, before the thing is 
through, it is proposed to enter into a separate peace with Germany." Think 
of a man wanting to be President of the United States, who doesn't know that 
"the thing is through" ! It will now be two years since a single gun has been 
fired, but the little nominee of the Democratic Party wants to get upon the 
porch of the White House on the fourth of next March, and, with drawn 
sword, announce to one hundred million people: "I am the Commander of the 
Army and Navy of the United States; the war is not over"; while the fellows 
who did the fighting have been for nearly two years plowing corn and running 
the stores and shops of this country. Cox doesn't know that the war is over 
for the United States; Harding knows that it is over. On the basis of intelli- 
gence alone, I am for Harding for President. 



LESSON xn. 



A SHORT REVIEW ON TREATY POINTS 

UNCLE SAM GIVES AMERICAN ADVICE. 
YOUNG AMERICA: We see. Uncle Sam, that Mr .Cox agrees with 
Professor Wilson that it was not necessary to put in the Reservations a state- 
ment that Congress alone has power to make appropriations and also that it is 
the only power which can declare war; but you have already shown me why 
it was necessary. We understood you, in a former Lesson, to say that a serious 
difference of opinion arose about 1794 as to whether we were legally and morally 
bound to make appropriations to carry out a treaty, and that Congress made the 
appropriations then, because of that obligation. We think we understand that, 
if the President and the Senate agreed to furnish American lives and money, 
the same argument would be used to force Congress to give American lives 
and money, regardless of whether the giving was in a righteous cause or not 
We remember you showed us the letter of President Wilson in which he said 
that giving notice to the people with whom we were trading was supererogation 
which, you showed us in the Dictionary, means something right but unnecessary; 

25 



and although we are first voters, we can see how important it is that we should 
notify the nations we are treating with, that the President and the Senate 
cannot alone make war and cannot make appropriations. We can see also, 
in view of the differences that have arisen in our country, how important it is 
to make it clear in the treaty. Do you think, Uncle Sam, that Professor Wilson 
knew about these differences in our own Congress in 1794, in 1844 and other 
times? 

UNCLE SAM : No. Professor Wilson has been so busy writing history, 
that he has not had time to read it, and his understudy, Mr. Cox, has learned 
early that he must take for his own such facts and conclusions as will show 
that his mind "goes along" with that of President Wilson. 

I beg of you, my young voters, if you believe in our form of Government, 
never vote to put the war-making power of our country into the hands of 
foreigners. 

The next call for American lives may be made to assist Poland, Russia, 
Germany or Japan, and, as you love your country, you should vote against any 
proposition that would leave a persuasive argument in favor of sacrificing the lives 
of American youth to settle real estate titles and cash indemnities between 
Kings, Kaisers or Mikados. Harding is for this fair American Reservation ; 
Cox is against it. You each have a vote, and, regardless of all other questions, 
I believe you will vote, as will the great majority of Americans, to say, with Mr. 
Harding, that no American life shall be sacrificed in any war until the Amer- 
ican people, through their representatives in Congress, shall say when and where 
they shall fight and in what cause they shall lay down their lives. 



26 



PART II 

A FIRST READER FOR FIRST VOTERS 



Extracts from the Congressional Record Containing Selections from Speeches of 

HONORABLE WILLIAM E. MASON 

in the House of Representatives 



TFIE PEACE RESOLUTION 
Friday, April 9, 1920. 

MR. MASON. Mr. Speaker, I was pleased with the statement, etc. made 
by the distinguished ex-speaker, Mr. Clark of Missouri, who is a real Democrat, 
and my personal friend. He described George Wi "lington coming into this 
body with all the framers of the CONSTITUTICxn' and said they would not 
make a dent on the Republican side. That is trve; they would not; they would 
add to the majority. (Laughter and applaus' on the Republican side.) If 
George Washington came down the isle today and I should say to him, "What 
did you mean as President of that Constitution Convention, and what did the 
Convention mean, in the very first sentence, reading, 'Article I, section^ 1 ; All 
legislative powers herein garnted shall be vested in the Congress'?" And 
George would say, "It means just what it says; that the lawmaking power is 
in the Congress and not in the President of the United States." (Applause on 
the Republican side.) Then I would say to him, "What did you mean, sir, 
when you said Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with for- 
eign nations?" He would say, "It means just what it says," and he would also 
say, "I have read the Porter Resolution; you have exercised your congressional 
power when you have attempted in section 3 to regulate the cornmerce between 
the country with which you are at war, and you are absolutely right." Then he 
would come over and sit down by the side of Steve Porter and stay with us 
and vote with us. (Laughter and applause.) 

My good friends said that too many cooks spoil the broth. As there were 
80 cooks on the George Washington to feed the President, I have no doubt that 
is what spoiled the broth at the peace table. (Laughter on the Republican side.) 
They kept out of that wonderful instrument every flavor of Americanism and 
brought us, instead of the dove of peace, the British lion, in a covered basket. 
(Applause and Laughter on the Republican side.) 

Section 1, article 1, says that the lawmaking powers shall be in the Congress 
of the United States. If the President disagrees with the Congress, we can 
overturn his will by a two-thirds vote, and we have done it in this very Con- 
gress. The power is here. If he refuses to obey the law, we can remove him. 
He can not remove a janitor out of this House, but, under the Constitution 
that George Washington and his friends made, the Congress can move him 
out of the White House. (Applause and laughter on the Republican side.) 
And they ought to have done it when he sent our troops to Russia without a 
declaration of war by the Congress of the United States, and they would have 
done it but for his condition of health, body and mind. 

Section 3, of the resolution under consideration, simply provides for a 
reestablishment of trade relations with Germany. It is not an attempt to make 
a treaty of peace. If it were I would not vote for it. The peace-making power, 

27 



A TAX OF TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS A DAY ON UNCLE 
SAM TO KEEP AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN GERMANY. 

House of Representatives, Friday, April 23, 1920. 

Mr. Mason : Mr. Speaker, I have introduced a resolution directing the 
Commander-in-Chief to withdraw our troops from Europe. 

The Constitution of the United States, in section 8, gives to Congress 
power "to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and 
naval forces." I was not present the other day when the statement was made by 
the distinguished chairman of the Military Affairs Committee as to the right of 
the President to send our troops wherever he sees fit. I do not think that is 
the law, but even admitting that he was correct, it would apply only when the 
United States was at war. The fact that we are at peace and the Constitution 
gives power to Congress to make rules for the Government and regulation of 
our Army and Navy ought to be sufficient for this Congress, for we have every- 
one taken oath to support this Constitution. 

It may be true that we can find no precedent for Congress ordering a change 
of location for American troops. It may be that no other President has given 
occasion for such an order, for no other President has, within my knowledge, 
wantonly and willfully usurped power in peace and in war as has the present 
occupant of the White House. 

What are the facts? The armistice was signed November 11, 1918. It 
was not signed by the United States or any military or civil representative of 
the United States. The United States was not an "ally" but was an "associat'^d 
power," and the only reference in the armistice as to America is in Article 5, 
which says that those districts on the left bank of the Rhine shall be admin- 
istered by local authorities in control of the Allies and the "United States 
armies of occupation." It is manifest that there was some agreement at that 
time that the United States was, at least temporarily, to occupy some portion 
of the German territory, but so far as Congress or the people know, no agree- 
ment was reached until the 28th day of June, 1919. At that time an agreement 
was made between the United States, Belgium, British Empire, and France 
on the one side and Germany on the other, with regard to the military occu- 
pation of the territory of the Rhine. This agreement was entered into by 
the President really as a part of the treaty of peace. He said when he sent it 
CO the Senate with a treaty , with Poland, "this treaty and this convention are 
really ancillary to the treaty of peace." The word "ancillary" means "subor- 
dinate, auxiliary, subservant." 

The President very properly called the agreement between the United 
States, Belgium, France, and England, dated June, 1919, a convention, as it was 
not binding until the ratification of peace by the Senate. In Roman law a 
convention might be between parties possessing all the subjective requisites 
in the contract, but did not become a contract until the objective requisite was 
supplied. In other words, a convention was an agreement which formed a 
basis of contract. Under this definition of Black, the so-called convention of 
June, 1919, never became an obligation, for the treaty never was consumated. 
In an international law convention was usually applied to agreements or ar- 
rangements for a preliminary formal treaty or to serve as its basis. 

Therefore, my contention that the so-called convention, like the armistice, 
was made as preliminary to an intended peace teraty; that peace treaty con- 
templated is not even pending, and it would be worse than absurd to say a 
year and a half after cessation of hostilities that simply because the President 
and the Senate has power to make another treaty or convention that therefore 
the American people must be taxed to the bone for another year or until such 
time as the consideration of a new treaty or convention will suit the personal 
whims or the political convenience of the President. 

So it is fair to say that while we call it a convention it was an attempt 
on the part of the President to negotiate an agreement whereby the United 
States troops were to occupy a part of Germany. It was sent to the Senate 
August 29, some two months after it was signed by President Wilson and was 
referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where it still remains. No 
attempt has ever been made by the Senate to advise and consent to this agree- 

30 



ment for the reason that if the treaty of peace — which Mr. Wilson negotiated 
without the advice of the Senate and which was rejected by the Senate — did 
not secure ratification, then this so-called convention, whereby we agree to 
leave American troops in Germany, would, in the very nature of things, fall 
with it. 

My proposition, which I respectfully believe to be sound, is, there being 
no treaty as contemplated by this convention of June 28, then there can be 
no convention of June 28, and the United States is not bound, either by inter- 
national law or by good morals to further retain our troops in Germany. The 
President, in my opinion, is not entirely frank in his communication to the 
Senate, published on page 5496 of the Congressional Record of April 1, 1920. 
It was in response to the resolution of the House asking how far the activities 
of our troops in Germany were in control without express orders from the 
President of the United States. The President refers to the armistice, paragraph 
5, which I have mentioned, in order to make it appear that the armistice is still 
in full force and binding upon the United States. He states that the armistice 
was continued from time to time and "on February 16, 1919, it was still further 
extended to a date not fixed." This would leave the impression that he expected 
the armistice to continue for any length of time to suit his political convenience. 
The language of the last extention, however, while it does not fix the number 
of days, says on February 16, 1919, "is further prolonged for a short period, 
the date of expiration not being given. The allied powers and those associated 
with them reserving the right to terminate the period with three days' notice." 
It has now been more than a year and two months since it was extended for a 
"short period," and the fact that the treaty of peace with Geramny, including 
the covenant of the League of Nations, was. rejected by the United States, 
and that peace between Germany and our associates has come by treaty, and 
peace between Germany and the United States has come by cessation of hos- 
tilities. There is nothing legally or morally binding on the United States to 
keep American troops in Europe. 

If I am correct in this proposition, then it is the duty of Congress to do 
that which is in the interest of the people of the United States, and I very 
respectfully submit that every interest of the United States demands that our 
troops be withdrawn from Germany, first, on account of the heavy expense on 
taxpayers of the United States ; second, because the keeping of our troops 
there widens the breech between the people of Germany and the United States, 
and engenders hatred when we are seeking to make*peace ; and, third, it hinders 
and delays foreign commerce and puts our merchants and importers where they 
must pay tribute to the merchants of Great Britain and other of our allies who 
have made peace with Germany and are dealing in a most friendly way with 
the enemies we helped them to conquer. 

Under the terms of the armistice, the peace treaty, and the "ancillary" con- 
vention, Germany was to pay our expenses. Article 6 of the convention pro- 
vides that "the German Government shall continue to be responsible for the 
maintenance of the cost of the troops." Of course, as we expected, they had 
failed to pay the expenses of the United States, although we have no means 
of knowledge whether they have promptly paid the French and English Govern- 
ments for the expense of keeping their troops there. 

Second. It needs no argument to show that keeping our troops in Ger- 
many engenders more war and not peace. If you doubt human nature, read 
again our fathers' protest in our declaration against Great Britain keeping 
her soldiers here. Ask yourself how you would feel if foreign soldiers were 
camped on us to see that we kept our agreements? 

Third. You add the high cost of living when you compel our importers 
to pay tribute to our late associates. You add one more middleman between 
the producer and the consumer. Our late friends are trading with our late 
enemies. Our late friends have placed an embargo on 90 per cent of our 
manufacturers. Our imports increasing and exports decreasing — we are buying 
more and selling less. Every intelligent man will understand why our factories 
are making less. Let us make this rule, and if the President refuses to enforce 
' it we will seek some other lawful way of relief. 

Please remember, I claim, with all respect for the opinion of others, that 

31 



Congress alone has power to make all laws, which includes all military laws ; 
and, therefore, the President is bound to execute military laws as well as 
civil laws. There are, according to our Supreme Court, three kinds of military 
jurisdiction, all to be established by Congress: 

First. For peace or war; 

Second. To be exercised in foreign war outside of the United States, 
or in civil war within States occupied by rebels treated as belligerents ; and 

Third. To be exercised in time of invasion or insurrection within the 
United States. 

I quote from Ex parte Milligan, United States Supreme Court, Fourth 
Wallace, page 142. 

This is from the minority opinion, but not in conflict with the finding of 
the court — 

The first of these may be called jurisdiction under military law, and is 
found in acts of Congress prescribing rules and articles of war and otherwise 
providing for the government of national forces ; the second may be distinguished 
as a military government, superseding, as far as may be deemed expedient, the 
local law, and exercised by the military commander under the direction of the 
President, with the express or implied sanction of Congress ; while the third 
may be denominated martial law proper, and is called into action by Congress, 
or temporarily when the action of Congress cannot be invited, and in 
the case of justifying or excusing peril, by the President in times of insur- 
rection or invasion, or of civil or foreign war, within districts or localities 
where ordinary law no longer adequately secures public safety and private 
rights. 

Even if we admit a state of war without the boundaries of the United 
States, yet the law is it must be exercised "with the express or implied sanction 
of Congress." 

The Milligan case, above quoted from, is, in the court's opinion and in the 
minority opinion, our unanimous assertion of the power of Congress to control 
military law, military courts, and in both opinions there is a solemn protest 
against any construction of the Constitution which renders the "military inde- 
pendent of and superior to the civil power." Every American should read 
this whole case a few times each year with the Declaration of Independence 
and the Constitution. Briefly, the case is : Milligan, a private citizen, was 
arrested October 5, 1864 — war period — by military orders, tried, convicted, and 
sentenced to be hanged. The Supreme Court swept aside a dozen questions 
and legal quibbles and ordered his discharge. Lincoln was President, and the 
Government stood against the writ. 

Congress March, 1863, authorized the suspension of the writ throughout 
the United States. By the same act Congress provided that all prisoners held 
by order of the President, except prisoners of war, should be reported to the 
United States judges by the Secretary of War. Then if the grand jury did not 
indict the prisoner could be discharged. The President in September following 
by proclamation — Thirteen Statutes at Large, page 734 — added to the list of 
prisoners who need not be certified to the judges for indictment or discharge. 
How the President attempted to legislate by denying the writ of habeas corpus 
to those that had not been denied by Congress will be observed by reading his 
proclomation, for he denied or suspended the writ not onlv to prisoners of war 
but to— 

Spies or aiders or abettors of the enemy or belonging to the land or naval 
forces of the United States or otherwise amenable to military law or the rules 
and Articles of War or rules prescribed by the President or for resisting the 
draft or for any offence against the military or naval service. 

Here is clear conflict. Congress said prisoners in Milligan's class should be 
certified to the court. The President said prisoners in Milligan's class can have 
no writ of habeas corpus. 

The court, in sustaining the writ and discharging the prisoner, said : 

They cannot justify on the mandate of the President because he is controlled 
by law, and has his appropriate sphere of duty, which is to execute and not 
make laws. 

Mr. Speaker and colleagues, we are playing with fire. Wherever our troops 

32 



are, if the Supreme Court is right, they are there with the "actual or implied 
sanction of Congress." Whatever they do, it is done with the "actual or implied 
sanction of Congress." I am no alarmist, but call your attention to the facts 
and to the law. We cannot shirk our plain duty. The day for handwashing and 
passing the buck is passed. Admit that the President had power to send them 
there, admit. that they were kept there by the implied sanction of Congress; then, 
what? The President says the troops can not be used except by his orders. 
Yet in the same report he tells our ofificers to keep in "close touch" with the 
French and English officers and adopt for our section the same rule — the word 
is "regime" — adopted by the French and English. Suppose today at San Remo 
these good friends and associates do not agree with each other as to which one 
shall get the first money from the Germans? Suppose they disagree as to the 
French or German occupation? They are meeting today. Suppose they disagree 
as to Turkey? How will our army keep in touch and adopt the same regime 
with Great Britain and France? 

Will they adopt the English plan or the French plan? They are under 
command of Woodrow Wilson, a man sick in mind and body. Our soldiers 
under his command have been killed in Mexico, in Siberia, and northern Russia 
by guns we furnished to help the men who killed us. Is it^ to be repeated in 
Europe? If our soldiers were home. Congress could decide where and when 
and with whom they should fight. 

But the President says our troops in Germany are to "police" the occupied 
district and to "repel any attack made upon him." The American soldier, in 
an American uniform, and under the American flag a policeman in Germany 
in times of peace, paid by the overburdened taxpayers in America. We have 
used them for elections in Silesia, policemen on the Rhine, track laborers and 
guards in northern Russia and Siberia. Under the law the President did all 
this with the actual or implied consent of Congress. When did you consent? 
Never; except by indifference and silence. Of course, I have no personal 
reflection, but this Congress was elected by the people as a rebuke to Woodrow 
Wilson for the manner in which he and his friends made one big rubber stamp 
of the last Congress. And yet, when I asked to get our poor boys out of Russia, 
the Secretary of War appeared before the Committee on Military Affairs and 
the old rubber stamp was applied with as much vigor as it was in the last Con- 
gress. The old chloroform bottle, prescribed by the Persident for American 
legislation, is still on tap. 

You have declared peace, and did right ; right but slow. Why police a 
country with which we are at peace and the only thing we offer is fair trade 
— as we have a right to under the Constitution. The only thing we ask is a 
waiver by Germany of war claims. Whether they make this waiver or not, we 
have no desire to use our "policemen" to fight. Are we to protect Germans 
against each other? Here is a picture of an American soldier guarding a street 
crossing, directing street traffic in Coblenz. We need policemen here; but, aside 
from that, how would you like it, to wear your country's uniform as a soldier 
and police the crossing in some other country? God hasten the coming of March 
4 next, when no American boy wearing our uniform shall be used for anything 
except in his high calling as an American soldier. Is the policeman to prevent 
England from fighting France or Germany? Are we to consent that our people 
shall be taxed for 10 years to police Germany when the treaty is negotiated 
by Wilson agreed to it and the Senate defeated the treaty? 

Germany has failed to keep her agreements, claiming inability to do so. 
Suppose France demands reprisal under its treaty of peace which she made 
with Germany. Suppose Great Britain protests, as she has and may again. 
With whom shall we keep in close touch, France or Great Britain? Suppose 
Germany does not pay, are we to collect by the sword? On what shall we levy? 
The Kaiser and tht royal family are absent. Are we to levy on the food of 
hungry people, or shall we take judgment and garnishee the food being sent 
by charitable Americans to the hungry women and children over there? 

Mr. Speaker, there is a deeper and more serious danger. I have said we 
are playing with fire. Perhaps I should have said the President is playing with 
fire, and we by our silence condone his offense. He determined to make the 
covenant a political issue. To do so he must keep us in a state of war. He must 

33 



pretend to have our troops in Germany under the armistice, which has served 
its purpose. It produced a cessation of hostihties ; it produced peace between 
the United States and Germany. It was to govern until peace was reached. 
A treaty of peace was contemplated, but it was presented and failed. Peace 
has been reached, but not by treaty. All conventions, as well as the armistice, 
based on the contemplated treaty fell when the treaty was rejected. To hold 
different would be to hold that at the end of the "short period" mentioned in 
the last extension of the armistice we must begin fighting again with Ger- 
many. The President may make an effort to be "cunning" and send the treaty 
back to the Senate, to make a political football of the lives and property of 
our people. I believe he will. The question is up to the House of Represen- 
tatives to take the initiative — make the first move to get our troops out of Europe. 

You did it in the declaration of peace and you pleased the American people. 
Refuse to order our troops out (now that we are at peace) and by your neglect 
abandon your duty, and you surrended your power to the one man and move 
toward militarism with gigantic strides. I beg my colleagues to read again 
the debates in the constitutional convention, which gave us the great chart of 
liberty. Read how our wise fathers sought to withhold power from any one man. 
Read again the opinion of our own Supreme Court in sustaining the power of 
the people's representatives and setting aside the power of the one man. That 
great court says (Milligan case cited) : 

This Nation has no right to expect that it will always have wise and 
humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the Constitution. Wicked 
men, ambitious of power, with hatred of liberty and contempt of law, may 
fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln. 

Remember Wilson's letter to the sixth Indiana district at the beginning of 
the war, his refusal of one hundred thousand volunteers, for quick action, just 
to prevent Roosevelt from being a soldier. Remember his letter while our men 
were fighting over there, using his political and military power to defeat patri- 
otic men, if they were not Democrats, and to elect the very Democrats he had 
denounced as disloyal. Remember his making war in Russia without congress- 
ional authority. Remember his continual overriding the Constitution he is 
sworn to uphold. 

Then decide whether you will yield any more of your power to him. Then 
decide whether you will complete the picture by announcing that in our country 
in times of peace the military power is greater than the civil power. Please, 
before you decide, read the gravestones in the cemeteries of history where 
nations are buried, the cause of national deatlv You will find that the com- 
pelling desease that filled the national graves was "one man controlling the 
military power," which is a simple name for "militarism and autocracy." There 
is a preventive, but no cure, for this national disease. Its prevention is in legis- 
lative action by the people's representatives. Power never limits itself. The 
irrepressible conflict of authority between the one man and the many will con- 
tinue. You will assist either the one or the other by your act. Trusting the 
people means life and health to our Republic. Trusting one man may mean 
sickness and death to our Nation. If you doubt me, look again at the rusty 
crowns scattered along the highway, all the way from the daj's of the Caesars 
to the days of the Czar of all the Russias and the Kaiser of the Imperial 
Government of Germany. 

I cannot favor the proposition to withhold appropriations from our brave 
officers and men over there. Such indirect legislation would reflect on our 
soldiers and on the Congress itself. 

Pass this resolution, and if the President refuses to execute the law,_ then 
impeach him. Pass this law in line with out declaration of peace, lift the 
burden of taxes from our people, reduce in that way some of the burdens of 
high prices, and say to the world that in a Republic civil and not military law is 
supreme, and as our boys fought for liberty and self-determination over there, 
we will not abandon those great principles under our own flag. 



A PLEA FOR A UNITED COUNTRY. 
House of Representatives, Tuesday, August 27, 1918. 
Mr. Mason : Mr. Speaker, when I asked permission yesterday to proceed 

34 



for fifteen minutes here upon the theory that "a united country added to the 
military strength of the nation," I did not know that there was on the way a 
message from General Pershing which seemed to give me a text for the 
theme which I had already selected. A dispatch from General Pershing, 
printed this morning, says : 

"It is the consciousness that the soldier has behind him ^an undivided 
Nation which enables him, whatever his rank, to face his task with courage." 

It is for that undivided Nation that I plead today 

If the Congressional Record of last Thursday, showing the wicked and 
corrupt management of our airplane department, made under the present ad- 
ministration, reported by a Democratic committee, and published to the world, 
could be printed in Germany, it would give more comfort and add more to 
the morale of the broken German Army than the winning of a German 
victory. The following is from a report of the Senate Military Committee : 

On July 24, 1917, Congress appropriated $640,000,000 to carry out the 
aircraft program. This fund has been, either by actual expenditure or by com- 
mitments, exhausted We have not a single American-made chasse 

(or plane for attack) upon the battle front. We have not a single American- 
made bombing plane upon the battle front. We have not developed or put in 

quantity production a successful chasse or fighting plane As early 

as the month of October, 1917, we were in possession of the necessary facilities 
to construct the Caproni, a powerful and successful heavy bombing plane, 
approved both by the Italian and English aeronautical engineers. Expert Italian 
engineers have been upon the ground since the month of January, yet the fact 
remains that we have up to date constructed only one experimental machine 
which is equipped with Liberty motors. Nearly a year has elapsed since we 
we might have begun work upon these machines and by this time have been in 
quantity production. 

The report of the inspection department, which has been published, shows 
not only wanton and woeful robbing of the Government of the United States, 
thereby aiding the enemy, but it was used as a cloak under which the friends 
of those appointed by the administration could creep by the score to escape 
military service. I did not write this report, and I have no desire to use it in 
a political campaign, but I give j^ou notice now that the wickedness which de- 
prives our boys on the battle front of the protection which the American people 
have paid for can not be covered up by the false, wicked statement that the 
Republicans are spreading German propaganda. 

See what our soldier boys are doing. The world's history has never recorded 
greater military skill and bravery than is being written day by day on the 
western front. If we had spent one-half of the money that has been squandered 
or stolen to build the airplanes already approved by Italy, France, and Great 
Britain, we would have 10,000 in the sky above our boys on the western front 
and driving the enemy back to the River Rhine before the close of this campaign. 
There is no place hot enough for the American who would line his pockets and 
put out the eyes of the American Army; and next to the man who robs our 
Government at this time is the man who seeks political power either for him- 
self or his party by appealing to the prejudice and credulity of our fellow citi- 
zens. The Republican Party has made no attack upon the loyalty of the Demo- 
crats in this House. We know you are loyal. You will be tried in the districts 
of this country where two men are running for Congress not upon the question 
of your loyalty but upon the question of your efficiency and the honesty of the 
man appointed to discharge governmental duties, and the sooner you abandon 
the doctrine of monopoly on patriotism, the sooner you quit calling everybody 
a traitor who does not vote the Democratic ticket, the sooner you realize that 
your boy and my boy are over there fighting together for our flag, the sooner 
you realize that it is not a question of who shall be elected to Congress but a 
question of who can do the most efficient work to aid the glory and prestige 
of the American arms, the sooner you do these things the sooner the prospects 
of the Democratic Party will brighten. The paramount issue will be. Who 
can furnish the best skill and brain to win this war? And upon that issue we 
will go to trial with you in November and let the American people decide. 

I plead for neither your party nor mine, but for our country's sake. Quit giving 

35 



pretend to have our troops in Germany under the armistice, which has served 
its purpose. It produced a cessation of hostilities ; it produced peace between 
the United States and Germany. It was to govern until peace was reached. 
A treaty of peace was contemplated, but it was presented and failed. Peace 
has been reached, but not by treaty. All conventions, as well as the armistice, 
based on the contemplated treaty fell when the treaty was rejected. To hold 
different would be to hold that at the end of the "short period" mentioned in 
the last extension of the armistice we must begin fighting again with Ger- 
many. The President may make an effort to be "cunning" and send the treaty 
back to the Senate, to make a political football of the lives and property of 
our people. I believe he will. The question is up to the House of Represen- 
tatives to take the initiative— make the first move to get our troops out of Europe. 

You did it in the declaration of peace and you pleased the American people. 
Refuse to order our troops out (now that we are at peace) and by your neglect 
abandon your duty, and you surrended your power to the one man and move 
toward militarism with gigantic strides. I beg my colleagues to read again 
the debates in the constitutional convention, which gave us the great chart of 
liberty. Read how our wise fathers sought to withhold power from any one man. 
Read again the opinion of our own Supreme Court in sustaining the power of 
the people's representatives and setting aside the power of the one man. That 
great court says (Milligan case cited) : 

This Nation has no right to expect that it will always _ have wise and 
humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the Constitution. Wicked 
men, ambitious of power, with hatred of liberty and contempt of law, may 
fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln. 

Remember Wilson's letter to the sixth Indiana district at the beginning of 
the war, his refusal of one hundred thousand volunteers, for quick action, just 
to prevent Roosevelt from being a soldier. Remember his letter while our men 
were fighting over there, using his political and military power to defeat patri- 
otic men, if they were not Democrats, and to elect the very Democrats he had 
denounced as disloyal. Remember his making war in Russia without congress- 
ional authority. Remember his continual overriding the Constitution he is 
sworn to uphold. 

Then decide whether you will yield any more of your power to him. Then 
decide whether you will complete the picture by announcing that in our country 
in times of peace the military power is greater than the civil power. Please, 
before you decide, read the gravestones in the cemeteries of history where 
nations are buried, the cause of national death. You will find that the com- 
pelling desease that filled the national graves was "one man controlling the 
military power," which is a simple name for "militarism and autocracy." There 
is a preventive, but no cure, for this national disease. Its prevention is in legis- 
lative action by the people's representatives. Power never limits itself. The 
irrepressible conflict of authority between the one man and the many will con- 
tinue. You will assist either the one or the other by your act. Trusting the 
people means life and health to our Republic. Trusting one man may mean 
sickness and death to our Nation. If you doubt me, look again at the rusty 
crowns scattered along the highway, all the way from the days of the Caesars 
to the days of the Czar of all the Russias and the Kaiser of the Imperial 
Government of Germany. 

I cannot favor the proposition to withhold appropriations from our brave 
officers and men over there. Such indirect legislation would reflect on our 
soldiers and on the Congress itself. 

Pass this resolution, and if the President refuses to execute the law, then 
impeach him. Pass this law in line with out declaration of peace, lift the 
burden of taxes from our people, reduce in that way some of the burdens of 
high prices, and say to the world that in a Republic civil and not military law is 
supreme, and as our boys fought for liberty and self-determination over there, 
we will not abandon those great principles under our own flag. 



A PLEA FOR A UNITED COUNTRY. 
House of Representatives, Tuesday, August 27, 1918. 
Mr. Mason : Mr. Speaker, when I asked permission yesterday to proceed 

34 



for fifteen minutes here upon the theory that "a united country added to the 
military strength of the nation," I did not know that there was on the way a 
message from General Pershing which seemed to give me a text for the 
theme which I had already selected. A dispatch from General Pershing, 
printed this morning, says : 

"It is the consciousness that the soldier has behind him 'an undivided 
Nation which enables him, whatever his rank, to face his task with courage." 

It is for that undivided Nation that I plead today 

If the Congressional Record of last Thursday, showing the wicked and 
corrupt management of our airplane department, made under the present ad- 
ministration, reported by a Democratic committee, and published to the world, 
could be printed in Germany, it would give more comfort and add more to 
the morale of the broken German Army than the winning of a German 
victory. The following is from a report of the Senate Military Committee : 

On July 24, 1917, Congress appropriated $640,000,000 to carry out the 
aircraft program. This fund has been, either by actual expenditure or by com- 
mitments, exhausted We have not a single American-made chasse 

(or plane for attack) upon the battle front. We have not a single American- 
made bombing plane upon the battle front. We have not developed or put in 

quantity production a successful chasse or fighting plane As early 

as the month of October, 1917, we were in possession of the necessary facilities 
to construct the Caproni, a powerful and successful heavy bombing plane, 
approved both by the Italian and English aeronautical engineers. Expert Italian 
engineers have been upon the ground since the month of January, yet the fact 
remains that we have up to date constructed only one experimental machine 
which is equipped with Liberty motors. Nearly a year has elapsed since vve 
we might have begun work upon these machines and by this time have been in 

quantity production. ,. , , , , i- i j , 

The report of the inspection department, which has been published, shows 
not only wanton and woeful robbing of the Government of the United States, 
thereby aiding the enemy, but it was used as a cloak under which the friends 
of those appointed by the administration could creep by the score to escape 
military service. I did not write this report, and I have no desire to use it in 
a political campaign, but I give you notice now that the wickedness which de- 
prives our boys on the battle front of the protection which the American people 
have paid for can not be covered up by the false, wicked statement that the 
Republicans are spreading German propaganda. 

See what our soldier boys are doing. The world's history has never recorded 
greater military skill and bravery than is being written day by day on the 
western front. If we had spent one-half of the money that has been squandered 
or stolen to build the airplanes already approved by Italy, France, and Great 
Britain, we would have 10,000 in the sky above our boys on the western front 
and driving the enemy back to the River Rhine before the close of this campaign. 
There is no place hot enough for the American who would line his pockets and 
put out the eyes of the American Army; and next to the man who robs our 
Government at this time is the man who seeks political power either for him- 
self or his party by appealing to the prejudice and credulity of our fellow citi- 
zens. The Republican Party has made no attack upon the loyalty of the Demo- 
crats in this House. We know you are loyal. You will be tried in the districts 
of this country where two men are running for Congress not upon the question 
of your loyalty but upon the question of your efficiency and the honesty of the 
man appointed to discharge governmental duties, and the sooner you abandon 
the doctrine of monopoly on patriotism, the sooner you quit calling everybody 
a traitor who does not vote the Democratic ticket, the sooner you realize that 
your boy and my boy are over there fighting together for our flag, the sooner 
you realize that it is not a question of who shall be elected to Congress but a 
question of who can do the most efficient work to aid the glory and prestige 
of the American arms, the sooner you do these things the sooner the prospects 
of the Democratic Party will brighten. The paramount issue will be, Who 
can furnish the best skill and brain to win this war? And upon that issue we 
will go to trial with you in November and let the American people decide. 

I plead for neither your party nor mine, but for our country's sake. Quit giving 

35 



I plead neither you party nor mine, but for our country's sake. Quit giving 
out false statements as to the loyalty of Republicans. Let us go into the field 
and on the hustings, say to the world that though we differ on great economic 
questions, questions of military policy, we are one on winning the war. Let 
us make every political meeting a patriotic meeting. Let us see who can sell 
the most liberty bonds. Let us see who can do most for the noble Red Cross, 
the Young Men's Christian Association, the Knights of Columbus, and the Sal- 
vation Army. Let us quit calling every American with a foreign name a 
traitor. A united country strengthens our military arm. The morale of the 
German army is gone because the German people have lost faith in their cause. 
Our boys are fighting ; my God, how bravely they fight ! The blood of ages 
rushes like the blood of youth through my veins when I hear of their bravery. 
Let no civilian hurt tliem by the_ slanderous statement that one-half of our 
people are not with them. It is not true; it a lie, a damnable lie. 

Mr. Speaker, your boy and mine are fighting side by side. Let us, you and 
I, do the same. Let all political parties do the same.' This, sir, will be notice 
to the Imperial Government of German}' — to the Kaiser himself — that, no 
matter what the political vote in November, the unanimous vote of America 
sustains the prestige of American arms. That Americans on the field are 
united, and about the firesides of our homes we are not divided. (Applause.) 



WITHDRAW OUR AMERICAN TROOPS FROM SIBERIA. 
House of Representatives, September 8, 1919. 
Five hundred American boys are buried in Russia or Siberia by the usur- 
pation of power by you, Mr. Wilson, and if you can look into the faces of the 
unhappy mothers and wives of these dead soldiers, if you could walk by their 
open graves and see the result of your work, you might have a better conception 
of your duty toward the American youth and eventually get into your mind 
that the Constitution of the United States limits the power of the President. 



Four thousand Illinois boys in Siberia. You have no right to keep them 
there and starve and murder them to gratify the whims of the man who seeks 
to make himself King of the United States. Read his poster. "War is not 
finished in Russia. Do your full duty now," etc. Whose war is it? Woodrow 
Wilson's war. 

The Secretary of War says they are there to "guard a railroad." Whose 
railroad in God's name is it? Have you stock there? Are you willing to fight 
for it? Then go and fight for it. Don't kill my boys to protect your dirty 
stock or your dirty bonds in your dirty railroad. 



THE $500 BONUS. 
House of Representatives, Tuesday December 2, 1919. 

Mr. Mason. Mr. Speaker, another bill which I shall speak briefly about: 
What has become of the bonus which we have talked so much about for the 

returned soldier? Others who are shrieking for economy say it 

would be too much like charity. Let it be understood once for all that any- 
thing the Government can do for the soldier carries with it the badge of honor 
and not the badge of charity. Was it charity when we made new generals 
and new admirals? Not one of your cheeseparing committees called it charity. 
Is it charity to pay pensions to the men of the Grand Army of the Republic 
and the Spanish War veterans? The man who says so has not the least con- 
ception of patriotism. When we made a bonus here for our Government em- 
ployees of $240 a year, so that they could take care of the high cost of living, 
no one called that. charity. We all agreed that it was an act of justice. 

Our boys came home from service and were discharged with that magni- 
ficent bonus which was nearly enough to buy them a suit of clothes. They were 
suddenly thrown back into civil life, many of them to find their positions gone. 
But wherever they are and whatever they are doing, the high cost of living 
is on them the same as on the rest of us. Thousands of them have fulfilled 
their engagements to marry, have bought a little furniture on time; thousands 
of them are still unemployed, and a sandwich this winter is worth more to them 

36 



than a banquet two or three years from now in the shape of lands which they 
can not cultivate. 

While I have proposed the issue of a bond of $500 to be called the honor 
service bond, I am free to say that I have no pride of opinion and am willing 
to vote for any of the half dozen bills which have been introduced by my col- 
leagues upon this subject. If there is any soldier who thinks that it is charity 
and that he does not want charity there is nothing to compel him to take it, 
but he ought not to stand in the way of he thousands of our good, hard-working 
boj's who were taken away from their business, used as long as we wanted them 
for German targets, and then turned back into the whirlpool of labor and com- 
merce, and told that a few years from now we are going to pass some land 
legislation that may possibly be of benefit to S per cent of the American soldiers. 

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to give respectful notice to those gen- 
tlemen who prevent us from having a vote on this subject the gentlemen who are 
in control of the committees of this House are taking a grave responsibility 
upon themselves in refusing to give us a chance to consider such a measure 
in the Committee of the Whole. I am familiar with the old method of killing 
legislation by preventing a vote upon it, but that time is passing, and the gen- 
tlemen who prevent us from having a vote upon that measure will have to ac- 
count to their constituents. 



COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING 



House of Representatives, Thursday, March 4, 1920. 



Mr. MASON. Mr. Speaker, one of the live questions before Congress and 
the people is the cumpulsory military training bill. As I was desirous of taking 
the sentiment of the people in my State, I addressed a letter to the Republican 
precinct committeemen, more than 3,000, outside of Chicago. In the letter asking 
for this opinion I gave my reasons for opposing the first bill introduced, which 
had the approval, as I was informed, of the administration and General Staff. 
It is House bill 8287. It was introduced by the distinguished chairman, Mr. 
Kahn. I wished my constituents to know why I opposed that bill. I asked these 
two direct questions, as follows: "Are you in favor of compulsory military train- 
ing of all American boys of 18 years of age? Second, if you favor the gen- 
eral principle, are you in favor of passing that law at the present time?" Over 
1,500 have answered, all courteously, as Republican committeemen always do. 
I have received so far very few who have answered that they were in "favor 
of compulsory military training. At this time in making this statement, to be 
entirely fair, out of the more than fifteen hundred answers received at least 
fourteen hundred are opposed to compulsory training, and so answered in re- 
sponse to the first question. Out of the 150 who answered that they were in 
favor of compulsory military training, more — very much more than one-half of 
them — qualified their answers, some of them saying it should be done in the 
public schools, some saying that it should not be done under the present admin- 
istration, but not 2 in 100 of the answers I have received have answered that 
they were in favor of compulsory military training and in favor of beginning 
now. I have received letters from these same committeemen, at least 300, giving 
a variety of reasons for opposing compulsory military training in any form. 

Many of them have stated on the cards or in the letters that they are op- 
posed to it, because just now they need all the help of their boys, particularly on 
the farms ; scores of them have opposed it because they say that they do not 
want their boys put under the training of the Regular Army at 18 on account 
of the temptations that surround; hundreds of them have said that compulsory 
military training is what killed the Kaiser, and we do not want to imitate him; 
and hundreds of them have said we have millions of young men already trained 
and they will volunteer in case of emergency. Many of them say we have taxes 
enough now ; very many of them replied stating they have no reply to my request 
to get the sentiment of the voting people in their precincts, and in every such 
case they stated that practically everyone they talked to was opposed to com- 
pulsory military training. Some of them responded saying I could use their 

37 



names, but not having that authority from all I shall not take the liberty of 
using their names. In my letter of request I asked those who favored the 
immediate passage of the compulsory training bill to suggest how to get the 
money, and out of those who were in favor of the immediate passage of a 
compulsory military training measure only two suggested the means of raising 
the revenue. One was to discharge a lot of Government employees and one 
suggested an increase in the surplus-profit tax. I think it fair to set out 
here a copy of the letter I wrote them, and if any of my colleagues find that 
I have misquoted any part of the bill I was discussing I shall be glad to 
liave my attention called to it. It may be stated that other bills have been or 
will be introduced that are less offensive, and we will take care of those bills 
when they are presented to the House. One of my correspondents who favored 
putting ail of the boys of 18 after three months service into the Regular Army 
and then into war, in case of war. The act of May 18, 1917, and August 
31, 1918, immediately comes into force and uses as far a spossible the organ- 
ization created by this act. One of my correspondents who favors this says that 
I should take the figures of an expert as to the cost. 

Of course, no two experts agree. The estimates agree that there will be 
a million boys compelled to train the first year and one and one-half million 
the second year, and anyone now who will look over the cost of the present 
administration of "mobilizing" can not fail to reach the conclusion that it will 
take in the second year at least a billion dollars. The loss to the Government 
in production alone, in the farms, factories, and offices, would be at least 
$500,000,000, and the debt we have to pay, which we must pay by production, will 
grow larger instead of smaller. One enthusiastic correspondent who wants 
this money spent, and spent now, does not stop at all to consider that the 
manner of raising taxes is more burdensome now than ever. The internal- 
revenue tax has been depleted, as we all know ; the import duties, under the 
low tariff passed by our Democratic brethren, does not produce within a million 
dollars a day of what it ought to produce and what it did under a protective 
tariff. So that all taexs are direct taxes and adds to the high cost of living. We 
know there is great unrest, and we know that unrest comes from the fact that 
the income of those who work has not kept pace with the high cost of living. 
The farmer is taxed in every way, not only on his implements but the high 
cost of living in his family and for labor. This tax on farmers makes it neces- 
sary for him to get more on everything, including the hides of his cattle. The 
tanner must get more for tanning the hides ; every man in the shoe factory, 
including the owner, must have more for manufacturing the shoes, so that all 
of this taxation is reflected in the high price of the shoes, and that tax on the 
consumer of shoes is the same to the man who labors as it is to the millionaire. 
This is true of everything that we eat and wear, everything that we consume, 
and I defy any student to show it is possible to add even $500,000,000 annual 
taxes without increasing the high cost of living. If the man who labors must 
pay more for his food and clothing, he must have an increased wage, and if 
Mr. Rockefeller is called upon for additional taxes, he adds it to the price of 
of gasoline for your car and kerosene for your lamps. So I most respectfully 
insist that even one-half a billion dollars added to our tax is the burning of our 
candle at both ends. The direct tax adds to the cost of living, and takes the 
stalwart young men off of the farms and out of the shops and offices destroys 
production, and that decreases the supply and also adds to the high cost of living. 
Mr. Speaker, there may come a time when you can please the people by in- 
creasing their burdens, but that time is not now. 

I wish, in conclusion, to answer the claims of those who are in favor 
of immediate compulsory military training. Of course, we all believe in pre- 
paredness. There are many things necessary to be prepared. One of the 
essential things is the man power. The other essential thing is to have the 
machinery of war, including equipment and supplies for every one of the many 
branches of the military service, and when those people who are supporting 
the lobby here in Washington to secure immediate compulsory military train- 
ing send out their propaganda that the United States suffered by reason of 
the inefficiency of our man power, I deny it. The young men of this country 
were ready to fight our battles and prepared to do it long before we were 

38 



ready to arm and equip them for the service. If delays came, it was not from 
want of patriotism^ it was not from the failure of brain, heart, or muscle in 
the American youth. These delays came from the incompetence of big business 
men of this country and from failure of the administration to function .in the 
preparation of arms, ammunition, airplanes, and guns, great and small. One 
of the circulars issued by the organization that questions the loyalty and pat- 
riotism of every man who disagreed with them sends out this circular trying 
to make it appear that loss of honor and prestige came to the American arms 
by reason of the untrained condition of our boys. I will not recount now the 
shame and disgrace from the waste of the billion dollars in the hands of the 
airplanes incompetents, nor would I mention the fact of the expenditure of 
hundreds of millions of dollars to build a powder city without producing a 
pound of powder for the Army, nor would I call attention to the billion dollars 
that was stolen by the contract traitorous profiteers from our country while 
we were at war, if it were not for the fact that many of those men who have 
grown rich on Government contracts and whose property came by reason of 
the delays in manufacture, are now the ones who are crying for this additional 
tax for compulsory military training, and claim that our delays in prepared- 
ness was by reason of the lack of training in the man power. Have you 
forgotten that under section 6 we authorized the President of the United States 
to take over a hundred thousand men who were ready to go with Roosevelt 
to fight the very first campaign after the declaration of war? Have you for- 
gotten that I charged on this floor that this very President refused to let 
them go on account of his political anim.osity toward Roosevelt? Have you for- 
gotten how you explained by saying that they did not have the Army equipment? 
Have you forgotten how that in many camps they drilled with broomsticks? 
Have you forgotten how the Secretary of War delayed the manufacture of 
machine guns? 

Have you read Pershing's report, where in cold, cold figures he shows 
the unpreparedness of the War Department? Will you turn to page 69 of 
his report, and find that in four months of 1918, when he had cabled for 
supplied, during these months the Government failed to send him over 960,000 
tons of supplies which he had asked for? Have you forgotten our shortage 
of ships, and will you still lay our misfortune to failure of man power while 
you were preparing to sell a great fleet of ships to our commercial rivals for 
20 per cent of their actual value? H we want to be prepared, let the Military 
Affairs Committee, in response to my resolution, recommend some legislation 
so that the War and Navy Departments may have a complete knowledge of 
every manufacturing plant in the United States, so that on 24 hours' notice 
they could begin to supply arms, munitions, and equipment. In our own 
arsenals we should have presses, drills, and all of the other machinery necessary 
in the preparation of our defense. Then let us have a good, strong, standing 
Army, as provided for in the present bill ; maintain liberally our training of 
officers at West Point and Annapolis ; give good pay to these men who make 
military service their life work; keep a few of the powder plants that you 
have spent so much money to build, instead of giving them away to speculators, 
and let the Regular Army keep them in order and ready for quick action — 
and even then, with all of the war material to be supplied at quick notice, 
the patriotic young men of this country will be ready to shoot before vou will 
be ready to give them a gun. 

Mr. Speaker, I am tired of reading the stuff from the millionaires' club 
about the failure of man power. Once again, in defense of my position, I 
return to the report of Gen. Pershing. Read, I beg of you, his report on the 
actual battles of the war; read the different phases of the Argonne, Chateau- 
Thierry. Begin with the first engagement; lead, in his simple language, how, 
when it was left for him to choose between two sectors and he chose the more 
difficult one, because, "in my opinion, no other allied troops had the morale 
or the offensive spirit to overcome successfully the difficulties that had to be 

met in the Meuse-Argonne sector and so the Muese-Argonne 

front was chosen." 

That sector had a front of 150 kilometers. Read how they moved, these 
"untrained, undisciplined" boys under the command of Pershing, moved and 

39 



carried out the plan agreed to between Foch and Pershing. At sunrise Septem- 
ber 12 they overwhelmed the enemy, and all of the objectives were reached 
by the afternoon of September 13. They captured 16,000 prisoners, 443 guns, 
large stores of material and supplies. On the 15th and 16th they moved beyond 
the objectives originally laid down and stabilized the line, the line that the 
enemy never crossed again except as a prisoner of war. Pershing says with 
his characteristic modesty : "The material results of the victory achieved 
were very important. An American Army was an accomplished fact, and the 
enemy had felt its power. No form of propaganda could overcome the depress- 
ing effect on the morale of the enemy of this demonstration of our ability to 
organize a large American force and drive it successfully through his defenses. 
It gave our troops implicit confidence in their superiority and raised their 
morale to the highest pitch." Read his report on the dififerent phases of the 
Argonne; find in it one word, if you can, of the lack of training; no such 
complaint is there; but he says in conclusion of his report of the second phase 
on the Argonne: ''It was the spirit of determination animating every American 
soldier that made it impossible for the enemy to maintain the struggle until 
1919." 

Thousands of our men had been well trained in the National Guard, thous- 
ands had been well trained as cadets in the public schools. Every lad that 
attended one of the "little schoolhouses" had drilled into him every day two 
great essentials for the soldier — love of country and courage. No, Mr. Speaker ; 
let those who believe in militarism burden the people with more taxes if they 
will, let them add to the high cost of living, let them take the boys out from 
the influence of home, placed in units in the Regular Army, make them, if you 
will, subject to the Articles of War before they are 19 years old, to be used 
in any form asked by Congress, whenever and wherever the President of the 
United States may direct; but when you make this step in imitation of the 
Kaiser, do not say that it was necessary by reason of inefficiency on the part 
of the American youth. 

WILSON AND THE WAR. 
House of Representatives, August 22, 1919. 

The war is over. Of course, we stood by him in the war. Of course, we 
know his sacrifices in his work. When our boys were in the front line at 
Chateau-Thierry he consented — the President of the United States drew forth 
his trusty fountain pen and consented — that his own son-in-law could bare his 
breast to the dangers of the Y. M. C. A. (Laughter.) And now he stands 
before the people and in this Chamber, or, at least, to the people, he says, 
"Do you want cheaper shoes? Then you must stand by the rape of China by 
Japan and turn over 36,000,000 republicans to the worst autocrat in the world, 
the kaiser of Asia, the Mikado. Do that. Let us turn over the real democracy 
of Asia to the autocracy of Asia, and then I will get you cheaper bacon and 
will lower the price of ham and prunes. 

"And now, do you want cheaper shoes? Do you want cheaper bacon? 
Then Great Britain must have five judges to our one in the settlement of in- 
ternational controversies." Potatoes cabbage, tomatoes, and canned corn will 
be free if you will agree to furnish American blood and money to see that no 
new republic shall ever be born. Ratify the most wicked treaty ever negotiated 
and your Uucle Sam may occupy the island of Yap and become a wet nurse 
for Turkey. 

Let us do away with this sanctimonious doctrine that we have been hear- 
ing about the President of the United States. He won his nomination in a 
convention when a majority had agreed upon another man. He was elected 
by a split in the protection party the first time, and the last time he was elected 
because he liad convinced the people that he had kept us out of war, when the 
only people he kept out of war were Teddy Roosevelt and Gen. Leonard Wood. 
(Applause on the Republican side.) 

And now today he is trying to fool the American people by telling them 
that he is going to keep us out of war again. It is the old trick, and the only 
question is whether or not the American peoijle are hen-pecked enough to be 
fooled twice by the same trick. ( .A.pplause and laughter on the Republican side.) 

40 



Al 



YOUNG AMERICA: Did you 

read Governor Cox's statement as to 
Republican campaign funds? 

UNCLE SAM: Yes. 

Did you read the statement of his 
friend Mr. Cummings, former Demo- 
cratic chairman? 

Yes. 

What do you call a man who 
makes untrue statements to injure his 
competitors? 

He is commonly called a scandal- 
monger. 

What do you call a man who goes 
around with a band pretending to 
have discovered something new and 
sensational when he repeats what all 
intelligent Americans know? 

He is called a fakir. 

To which class does Mr. Cox be- 
long? 

To both. 



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